- Museum number
- SL,5218.21
- Description
-
Portrait of Helius Eobanus Hessus; head and shoulders almost in profile to right, with beard and wearing a wide-brimmed hat. 1526
Metalpoint, on prepared paper
- Production date
- 1526
- Dimensions
-
Height: 169 millimetres
-
Width: 117 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- Summary of 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. 249:
'The identity of the sitter is confirmed by a woodcut portrait after this drawing in an elegy by Hessus addressed to Johann Friedrich, Duke of Saxony, published in a complete copy of the first edition, which appeared in 1526. Helius Eobanus (1488-1540) the classical scholar and poet whose family name was probably Koch, had come to Nuremberg in 1526 to teach at the new grammar school in the Aegidienkloster founded by Melanchthon, and remained there until 1533. Eobanus became briefly a close friend of Dürer until the artist's death. He lamented his passing in an 'Epicedion in Funere Alberti Dueri . . .', Nuremberg, 1528, as well as giving vent to more intimate expression in a short poem, the 'Dream about Dürer', published with it.'
Lit. from Rowlands 1993: Ephrussi, pp. 333ff. ; Thausing, ii, p. 260; Lippmann, part xxiii, pp. 17f, no. 295, repr.; Dodgson, i, p. 345, under no. 1; Conway, p. 48, under no. 913; Pauli, p. 42, no. 1184; BM Guide, 1928, p. 30, no. 293; Flechsig, Dürer, ii, p. 333; Tietze, iii, p. 62, no. 962, repr.; Winkler, Dürer, iv, p. 79, no. 905, repr.; Panofsky, ii, p. 106, no. 1024; Rotterdam, Erasmus, i, no. 293; Rowlands, Dürer, p. 45, no. 294; Strauss, iv, p. 2308, no. 1526/ 2, repr.; BM Dürer and Holbein, pp. 110f., no. 81, repr.
This drawing was issued as a coloured facsimile by the British Museum in 'Reproductions of Drawings by Old Masters in the British Museum', Part I, Published by the Trustees, in 1888 where it was number XXIV(a) and described there as 'Albrecht Dürer, Portrait of Eoban Hess: Dated 1526.'
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
1928 BM London, Guide Woodcuts, Drawings of A. Dürer, no. 294
1960, BM, Sloane Drawings, (no cat.)
1970, BM, Tercentenary of Sloane Drawings, no.3
1971 BM, The Graphic Work of Albrecht Dürer, no. 294
1988 Jul-Oct, BM, Age of Dürer & Holbein, no.81
- Acquisition date
- 1753
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- SL,5218.21
- Additional IDs
-
Miscellaneous number: C,07.21
