print
- Museum number
- 1895,0122.1192-1197
- Description
-
Bird's eye view of Venice from the south. 1500
Woodcut printed from six blocks on six sheets of joined paper
- Production date
- 1498-1500
- Dimensions
-
Height: 1340 millimetres
-
Width: 2808 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
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- Curator's comments
- One of eleven known impressions of the first state of the woodcut, showing the Campanile in Piazza San Marco with the temporary flat roof after a fire in 1489. In the second state the block was altered to take account of the restoration work done in 1511-4 and the date 1500 ("MD") was removed. The original blocks are in the Correr Museum in Venice.
On 30 October 1500 the Signoria of Venice granted Anton Kolb a privilege for this print for four years. In his petition, Kolb, a merchant from Nuremberg and a friend of Dürer, stated that the preparatory work had taken three years. The name of the artist is not mentioned in the documents, nor is the print signed but it is certainly by Jacopo de' Barbari; the figure of Mercury at the top carries Jacopo's personal sign of the caduceus.
For further information and bibliography see the entry by Silvia Urbini on the online catalogue 'Atlante delle xilografie italiane del Rinascimento', ALU.0100.1. For the related block see ALU.0100-M.
- Location
- On display (G90a)
- Exhibition history
-
1971 BM, Dürer, no.326
1983/4 Nov-Mar, London, Royal Academy, Genius of Venice
1986 June-Dec, London, The British Library, The City in Maps
2010 April-Sep, London, The British Library, Magnificent Maps
2012 London, BM, Shakespeare
- Acquisition date
- 1895
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1895,0122.1192-1197