2 - Nuremberg Chronicle Frontispiece - God the Fathers enthroned - related Dürer drawing - 1490

Nuremberg Chronicle Frontispiece - God the Fathers enthroned - related Dürer drawing - 1490 Description: The opening woodcut of Genesis. God said Let there Be and all things were made (Translation from the Latin text in the banderolle "Ipse dixit et facta sunt: ipse mandavit et creata sunt, Psalm 32". Impressive old colored woodcut from the first German edition of Hartmann Schedel, "Liber Cronicarum", 23 December 1493. The wood blocks were designed by Michael Wolgemut and his stepson Wilhelm Pleydenwurff and their assistants, including the young Albrecht Dürer, who was apprenticed to Wolgemut at the time. The printing was carried out under the supervision of the great scholar-printer Anton Koberger, who was Dürer's godfather. Wohlgemut was Albrecht Dürer's tutor between 1486-90. The young Dürer was working in the workshop in the years 1486-1489 when many of the early designs for the Chronicle were made and he was probably involved in a certain amount of them. Here God the Father sitting on a throne, wearing a head-dress resembling a papal tiara and holding an orb in his left hand, a scroll above and below an empty banderolle with on either side of which are two wild men holding shields with unidentified coat of arms, at the top a decorative border of entwined branches and naked figures. In the case of this 'God the Father Enthroned ', there is a related drawing in the British Museum attributed since 1885 to Wolgemut but Adrian Wilsons points out in his 'The making of the Nuremberg Chronicle - 1976' that the drawing in fact is to subtle in its delineation and shading and superior to any drawing attributed to Wolgemut and its rendering should be attributed to the young Dürer. His conclusion is that a basic intital design for the woodcut was made by Wolgemut but Dürer tried his hand at copying his master's work in 1490, the date on the drawing .So the interaction with Durer is evident but the woodcut probably followed the more rude earlier basic drawing and quite some of the finesse was also lost when carving the woodblock. (See Adrian Wilson - 1976, The making of the Nuremberg Chronicle, p.76). On the backside we have the Prologue in Latin with the Summary of the Work of the Six Days including a very nice hand painted initial in red and blue, following the text entirely lettered by Hartman nSchedel in his handwritten design page. Here we have a fine oldcoloured example of this impressive woodcut from the old colored luxury editions of the Cronicarum who were of the most expensive ones. Dimensions: 37,50 x 24,00 cm Condition: Excellent condition. Full untrimmed sheet. Literature: Liber Chronicarum, here the firsrt German edition , printed by Anton Koberger in Nuremberg on 23 December 1493 . (The first Latin edition was published 12 July 1493). The luxury editions in old coloring are mentioned in literature and were of the most expensive. --- Adrian Wilson - 1976: The making of the Nuremberg Chronicle. Medium: Woodcut Date: 1493