Albrecht Durer (1471-1528) Lot n° 11

Albrecht Durer - Fire Extinguishing Fool / Description: Feuerlôschender Narr'. De obliuione sui ipsius - Neglecting one's own interests. Woodcut made by the young Albrecht Durer in 1494 for Sebastian Brant's Stultifera navis - Das Narrenshiff. The Basel humanist Sebastian Brant described the sea journey of fools (representing the follies of human weakness and vice) to "Naragonia" the paradise of fools. The fine woodcut is the one commissioned for the first edition (in German) of 1494. This is one of the 75 of the 112 woodcuts now attributed to Dürer, who resided in Basel for a few months in 1494. "The woodcut illustrations created for the Das Narrenschiff are of immense density and tenseness. Since there was no iconographical tradition for this newly conceived text, the subjects and scenes of the illustrations had to be created entirely new. The images presented are of such convincing force that their equal in design had never before been seen" (A Heavenly Craft, p. 63). The woodcut here on auction from the Latin edition of 1511. / Dimensions: 11,70 x 8,50 cm / Condition: Very good black impression trimmed outside the borderline. Small Latin text letters on the backside. Overall very good condition. / Literature: Schramm 1168 - Winkler 18 - Rogner & Bernard 1374 / Medium: Woodcut /Circa: 1494