- Museum number
- 1848,1125.8
- Description
-
Design for a dagger with the Triumph of Bellona on the scabbard; the dagger in its scabbard, the hilt decorated with trophies of war, classical battle scene on the sheath with a woman in a chariot at r
Pen and black ink, with black, yellow and grey wash over traces of black chalk, on three conjoined sheets
- Production date
- 1539 (circa)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 347 millimetres
-
Width: 76 millimetres
- Curator's comments
- Edited from J.Rowlands 'Drawings by German Artists and Artists from German-speaking regions of Europe in the Department of Prints andDrawings at the British Museum: the Fifteenth Century, and the Sixteenth Century by Artists born before 1530', London, BM Press, 1993, no. 285:
'In the early literature this drawing was considered to be by Hans Holbein the Younger, although Edouard His stated that the sheath design seemed to be after Holbein, and was drawn in a different hand to that of the hilt. Binyon also considered that the drawing was done in two different hands, with the sheath by Holbein and the hilt probably by Peter Flötner, a solution accepted by Chamberlain. The design is, however, a consistent whole and can be attributed to Flötner with confidence. The hilt is similar in design to his woodcuts of three ornamental hilts (Hollstein, viii, p. 155, nos. 75-77, repr.), one of which has a Roman breast cuirass and is particularly close in composition (no. 77). The sheath, both in its details and in the use of placing the figures against a dark background, finds parallels in other drawings by Flötner. The style of the drawing as a whole is comparable to a finely executed and elaborately organised design for a dagger, dated 1539, in Berlin (Kupferstichkabinett, KdZ. 16779; Nuremberg, 'Gothic & Renaissance' p. 448, pl. 259). A Swiss dagger, of possibly nineteenth-century origin, displays on its sheath the same composition of the 'Triumph of Bellona' as seen in the present drawing. The difference in the design of the chape and the hilt of the dagger suggests, however, that it was not made after this drawing but after an intermediary design of a later date (Danish private collection; Schneider, 'Schweizerdolch' , p. 147, no. 76, repr.).'
Lit. from Rowlands 1993: Waagen, Treasures, i, p. 236; BM Guide, 1860, pp. 10—11, no. 73.1; BM Guide, 1862 (1867), p. 8, no. 22; Reid, pl. 5; Woltmann, i, p. 435, ii, p. 135, no. 196; His, pl. xxxii, no. 1; LB, ii, p. 342, no. 39; Chamberlain, ii, p. 278; White, p. 570, no. 185; Rowlands, Dürer, p. 53, no. 335, repr.; BM Dürer and Holbein, pp. 125-6, no. 95, repr.
For a discussion of Flötner's designs for ornament in both drawing and print, including the design for a dagger sheath in Berlin, see M. Teget-Welz in T. Schauerte and M. Teget-Welz (ed.) 'Peter Flötner: Renaissance in Nürnberg' exh.cat. for the Museen der Stadt Nürnberg in association with the Universitätsbibliothek Erlangen- Nürnberg, 2014, pp.35 - 43.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
1860 BM London, Guide Drawing&Prints, King’s Library, no. 73.1
1862(67), BM London, Guide Drawing&Prints, King’s Library, no. 22
1971, BM, Dúrer no.335
1988, July-Oct, BM, Age of Dürer & Holbein, no. 95
2001/2 Oct-Jan, New York, Bard Graduate Center, William Beckford: an Eye for the Magnificent
2002 Feb-April, Dulwich Picture Gallery, William Beckford: an Eye for the Magnificent
- Acquisition date
- 1848
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1848,1125.8
