- Museum number
- 1848,1125.3
- Description
-
Dog resting; lying in profile to right, wearing a collar with ring. 1520-21
Silverpoint over traces of underdrawing in carbon black (charcoal?) on pale pink prepared paper
Verso: Studies of two women; one at left wearing a cloth head-dress, her hands folded, the other wearing a cloak and round hat. 1520-21
Silverpoint on pale pink prepared paper
- Production date
- 1520-1521 (c.)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 128 millimetres
-
Width: 180 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- Together with 1895,0915.982, this belongs to a group of fifteen sheets drawn in silverpoint on pink prepared paper that formed part of a sketch-book that Dürer used while he was in the Netherlands, 1520-21 (for detailed images and analysis of the technique and sheet preparation, see Russell, Rayner and Bescoby, 2016). This sensitive sketch of a dog was drawn between 4 and 26 October 1520 while Dürer was in Aachen. He made another drawing in silverpoint of a similar type of dog the following year in Antwerp (Berlin Kupferstichkabinett; Strauss 1521/11). On the verso of this sheet, there is a drawing of two women. The one on the left is copied from a brass statuette on the tomb of Isabella of Bourbon (died 1465) formerly in the abbey church of St Michael in Antwerp.The figure on the right on the verso appears again in a pen-and-ink sketch (Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan; F.264 inf. 5; see Winkler, 'Dürer', iv, pl. 751) inscribed by the artist, 'ein türgin' (a Turkish woman) or, as Erica Tietze-Conrat interpreted, 'ein bürgin' (a woman from the Austrian province of Burgenland). Albrecht Altdorfer drew a woman with the same kind of head-dress in the margin of the 'Prayerbook' of Emperor Maximilian as part of the decoration, much of which was done by Dürer in 1515 (Besançon, Bibliothèque Nationale; Winzinger, 'Altdorfer', pl. 88). Research by Ursula Mende ('Kunstgeschichtliche Aufsätze von seinen Schülern und Freunden . . . des K.H. Ladendorf ', Cologne, 1969, pp. 24-40) has established that such a costume was worn during this period by women in Bohemia, Silesia and some parts of Austria. This indicates that Tietze-Conrat's interpretation of Dürer's inscription is probably the correct one. The head-dress is also seen in a figure in 'The Crucifixion in outline' (Dodgson, 'Dürer Engr.', pl. 107). A copy of this drawing by Hans Hoffmann is in Budapest (see 'Rudolf II and Prague', exh cat. Prague, 1997, no. I.217).
This sheet was possibly removed from the Albertina, Vienna, by Vivant-Denon (c. 1808-12) on behalf of Napoleon, and later sold at his sale in 1826. According to Winkler (vol. 4., 1939, p. 11) the silverpoint sketchbook of 1520 to which this belongs, was, with the exception of the first sheet, all in the Albertina at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Two other sheets that went astray at that point are the 'Portrait of a man and a woman' in Frankfurt (Strauss 1520/33 and 34) and 'Portraits of Paul Topler and Martin Pfinzing' in Berlin (Strauss 1520/19).
Lit. from J. Rowlands 'Drawings by German Artists and Artists from German-speaking regions of Europe in the Department of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum: the Fifteenth Century, and the Sixteenth Century by Artists born before 1530', London, BM Press, 1993, no. 217: 'Pérignon, Description, p. 161, no. 622; Waagen, Treasures, i, p. 235; Hausmann, Naumann's Archiv, pp. 34-35; Hausmann, p. 106, no. 5; Thausing, ii, p. 184. Ephrussi, pp. 283f; Lippmann, part xxiii, pp. 15-16, nos. 285-6, repr.; Conway, p. 42, nos. 765 and 766; BM Guide, 1928, p. 27, no. 266; Schilling, Sketchbook, p. 21, repr.; Winkler, Dürer, iv, pp. 16f., nos. 766-7, repr.; F. Grossman, Warburg Journal, xiii, 1950, pp. 234f, repr.; Rowlands, Dürer, p. 40, no. 264; Goris and Marlier, p. 182, nos. 5 and 6, repr.; Strauss, iv, pp. 1948ff, nos. 1520/23 and 24, repr.; BM Dürer and Holbein, pp. 100-2, no. 73, repr.'
Additional lit: 'Dominque-Vivant Denon: L'oeil de Napoleon' edited by Marie-Anne Dupuy, exh.cat. Paris, Louvre, 1999, no.581; Giulia Bartrum, 'Dürer and his Legacy' exh.cat. London British Museum, 2002, no. 152; Giulia Bartrum in 'Drawing in Silver and Gold: Leonardo to Jasper Johns', edited by Stacey Sell and Hugo Chapman, Princeton and Oxford, 2015, p. 71, pls. 30 (recto and verso); Joanna Russell, Judith Rayner and Jenny Bescoby, ' Northern European Metalpoint Drawings: technical examination and analysis', London, 2016, pp. 14, 60.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
1928 BM London, Guide Woodcuts, Drawings of A. Dürer, no. 266
1971 BM, Dürer no.264
1977/8 Dec-Feb, BM, 'Animals in Art' (ex cat.)
1988 July-Oct, BM, Age of Dürer & Holbein, no. 73
1999/2000 Oct-Jan, Paris, Musée du Louvre, Denon 1747-1825
2002/3 Dec-Mar, BM, Dürer and his Legacy, no. 152
2015 May-Jul, Washington, NGA, 'Drawing in Silver and Gold' (recto and verso)
2015 10 Sep-6 Dec, London, British Museum, 'Drawing in Silver and Gold' (recto)
- Acquisition date
- 1848
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1848,1125.3
