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Books, Autographs & Prints

Thursday 09 March 2023 e Friday 10 March 2023, 03:00 PM • Rome

18

Incisioni - Durer, Albrecht

The martyrdom of the ten thousand, 1500

Estimate

€ 1.500 - 1.800

Sold

€ 1.935

The price includes buyer's premium

Information

Woodcut, on laid paper, signed in the plate lower center with the monogram "AD", three mountains watermark with cross, late 16th century, mm. 383 x 285, slight shortcomings and spots.

Specialist Notes

.Large and very elaborate composition, which illustrates the atrocious martyrdom of ten thousand Christian soldiers that took place on Mount Ararat in Armenia: it was commissioned by Frederick the Wise, the artist's patron since 1496. In 1508 Durer painted an oil on panel for him from which he eliminated some details, such as the torture of the bishop Acatius whose eyes were gouged out with a drill. Frederick, who in 1502 had founded the University of Wittenberg where Luther and Melanthon taught, was one of the princes who undertook to propose the cause of the reform to the emperor Maximilian I, and attempted to propose the Luther's thesis, banned, and found him refuge in his castle of Wartburg  after the Diet of Worms. The painting is now kept in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.