Albrecht Dürer

A very fine, bright impression, with excellent contrasts, printing with fine burr under the bridge and in the area of the standing dogs. With the horizontal lines above the outermost left mountain contours, above the saint's right arm and shoulder. Trimmed to the image, just inside the image at the bottom right. The early watermark from Dürer's finest period clearly visible, which already appears in his engravings from around 1495. This large-format copperplate engraving is one of Dürer's major works and is rarely found in good condition. According to legend, Eustace was a Roman officer in the army of Emperor Trajan. While hunting, he encountered a stag with a crucifix in its antlers and was converted to Christianity. He later suffered martyrdom. As the patron saint of hunters and one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers, he was very popular at the end of the 15th century. The engraving showcases Dürer's mastery in reproducing natural forms in their various textures at their peak. Every detail, whether in close-up or in the distant landscape view, is treated with the same meticulousness. Particular attention is paid to the hunter's horse and five greyhounds, all of which, with one exception, are drawn in pure side view and without overlap, and are distributed evenly across the surface with a certain horror vacui. ‘With his “naturalism”, the artist appropriates, as it were, the saint's kneeling before the creature (...) the veneration of Christ goes hand in hand with the glorification of creation’ (cf. R. Schoch, p. 94). Dürer particularly valued this sheet. As his diary reveals, he still carried prints of Eustachius with him on his trip to the Netherlands in the 1520s to give away or sell, which he had engraved some two decades earlier. Slightly soiled on the left side of the sky, verso with two horizontal, barely noticeable small areas of thinning paper, isolated tiny edge defects, otherwise in good condition. Very rare in this good print quality.