Recent Acquisition | A Key Work from Dürer’s “Master Engravings”

Albrecht Dürer’s Meisterstiche, or “master engravings”—so-called on account of their size, quality, and iconographic complexity—consist of three prints: Knight, Death, and the Devil (1513), Saint Jerome in His Study (1514), and the enigmatic Melencolia I (1514). While the Princeton University Art Museum acquired impressions of Jerome and Melencolia in 1949 and 1952, respectively, the set remained incomplete until now, with the recent acquisition of an excellent impression of the Knight, Death, and the Devil, which has an interesting history and an illustrious provenance. 

The Knight is the earliest of Dürer’s Meisterstiche, and perhaps the most sensational and dynamic. In contrast to the contemplative seated figures in Jerome and Melencolia, the Knight shows its protagonist in action, mounted atop a marching horse with a dog running alongside. Accosted by the gruesome figures of Death and a devil, the rider advances undaunted. Although the print’s symbolism and interpretation have been the subject of much debate, in a diary kept during his Netherlandish sojourn of 1520–21, Dürer simply called it “der Reuter,” the rider or horseman. It is now understood to have some connection to The Handbook of the Christian Knight (1504) by the Dutch Renaissance scholar Desiderius Erasmus (1466/9–1536). In this text, Erasmus advises his readers to emulate the metaphoric Christian soldier: “Be not deterred from the path of virtue by the fact that it seems harsh and grievous, and that you must . . . constantly engage with three most impious enemies—the flesh, the devil, and the world. . . . All the terrors and phantasms, which at once accost you as in the very jaws of Hell, are to be regarded as nothing.” Dürer depicts the steadfast Knight in a rugged landscape, approached by Death with an hourglass and a devil behind. He ignores these and rides forward, with the dog below symbolizing faith and fidelity.  

The Knight was made around the same time Erasmus began a friendship with one of the most prominent humanists in Nuremberg, and Dürer’s closest friend, Willibald Pirckheimer (1470–1530). As a mutual friend, Pirckheimer later acted as a go-between of sorts for the two men, prompting Dürer to engrave a portrait of Erasmus and Erasmus to write a eulogy for Dürer. Accordingly, Pirckheimer may have been the one to introduce Dürer to Erasmus’s Handbook. That Dürer knew this text is implied by an entry in his diary, in which he implored Erasmus to refute false claims of Martin Luther’s death with analogy to the Christian Knight: “O Erasmus of Rotterdam, where will you take your stand? . . .  Hark, you Knight of Christ, ride forth at the side of our Lord Christ, protect the truth, attain the martyrs’ crown!”  

Indeed, Pirckheimer likely advised his friend Dürer when he was planning the prints of the Meisterstiche; their collaboration on other projects is documented in correspondence maintained over decades. The possible provenance of this sheet is therefore particularly exciting. According to an inscription on the verso by a previous owner, the English archaeologist Francis Douce (1757–1834), the print was once owned by Pirckheimer himself. If Douce’s inscription is accurate, the print went to England when the Earl of Arundell (1585–1646) purchased Pirckheimer’s library from his descendants in 1636. Douce then acquired the print around 1806, eventually gifting his collection to the Bodleian Library at Oxford University. It was later transferred to the Ashmolean Museum before being deaccessioned as a duplicate impression in 1941—as noted in an inscription and an Oxford collection stamp on the verso. It passed through a number of dealers and collectors in London before coming to the United States in the 1970s. Pirckheimer’s possible ownership of this impression is significant, as he was almost certainly involved in the development of the complex iconography of the Knight and may have introduced Dürer to Erasmus’s text. Pirckheimer thus could have received this impression from Dürer himself, as a gift from a friend.

This impression of the Knight is perhaps the strongest of Princeton’s three Meisterstiche. It is printed with rich darks, subtle inking, and high contrasts; however, it has also been subject to well-concealed eighteenth-century restorations. A half-inch strip along the right edge and a portion of the top center of the sheet were lost and replaced and the image carefully redrawn with pen and ink. The restorations have been expertly done, so that one must look closely to spot the differences between what is drawn and what is printed. Although the Museum’s Knight is not the most pristine impression, its idiosyncrasies provide unique opportunities for teaching connoisseurship, close looking, provenance, and the history of art restoration. The restorations and inscriptions on the verso tell the story of the print’s long journey: from the hands of Dürer to his closest interlocutor, from an earl to a skilled restorer to a collector and archaeologist, and from Nuremberg to Oxford to Princeton—this Knight has found a home and can finally rest.  

Jun P. Nakamura
Assistant Curator of Prints and Drawings