Currently not on view
The Adoration of the Magi,
1511
Dürer intended his woodcuts for a broader market than that for his more expensive engravings, but the degree of refinement he brought to the medium is abundantly evident in this Adoration. The artist’s sophisticated command of single-point perspective, subtle qualities of light and shade, and naturalistic detail—including the African identities of the Ethiopian king and his retinue—are in sharp contrast to the simplified illustration in Koberger’s Nuremberg Bible, above, though created only twenty-eight years later.
Coincidently, Koberger was Albrecht Dürer’s godfatherand is best known today as the publisher of the massive Nuremberg Chronicle, an illustrated world history according to the Bible—to which a young Dürer is thought to have contributed woodcuts.
Information
1511
Europe, Germany, Nuremburg
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Adam vom Bartsch, "Volume 7," Le peintre graveur ... (Vienne: J. V. Degen, 1803-05).
, nos. 16–52, pp. 119–122 - Arthur Mayger Hind, Albrecht Dürer: his engravings and woodcuts (New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1911)., p. 14
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Campbell Dodgson, Albrecht Dürer (London: Medici Society, 1926).
, nos. 60–96 - Joseph Meder, Dürer-Katalog, ein handbuch über Albrecht Dürers stiche, radierungen, Holzschnitte, deren zustände, ausgaben und wasserzeichen (Vienna: Gilhofer & Rauschburg, 1932)., nos. 125–161
- An Exhibition of 100 Prints and Drawings from the Collection of James H. Lockhart, Jr. (Pittsburgh: Carnegie Institute, 1939)., p. 151
- Erwin Panofsky, Albrecht Dürer (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1945).
- R. A. Koch, "Master I. A. of Zwolle and Others: A Handsome Gift of Rare Prints" The Record XX, no. 2 (1961): 30-42., fig. 1, p. 31 (illus.)
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"Recent acquisitions", Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University 20, no. 1 (1961): p. 24-27.
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F.W.H. Hollstein, “Dürer,” German engravings, etchings, and woodcuts, ca. 1400-1700 (Amsterdam: M. Hertzberger, 1962).
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Rainer Schoch, Matthias Mende, and Anna Scherbaum, Albrecht Dürer: das druckgraphische Werk (München: Prestel, 2001).
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