DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.52770#0120
D U R E R
Vienna. Second State
77. ST. PAUL
II. The work completed.
This is probably the earliest of the incomplete set of Apostles. The first state
indicates that Diirer first conceived the figure of the Apostle as standing in relief
against a blank sky, the surface of the ground being curved, as in some of the earlier
plates (B.29, 66, 86). One would think it unlikely that Diirer would have adopted
this scheme after engraving the St. Thomas, in which the figure seems to have been
planned from the first in relation to such background as there is, while the signature
and date are inconceivable without their context, were it not for the fact that he
returned to the early scheme in the St. Simon of 1523, which strongly resembles the
first state of St. Paul.
Drawing: a pen-and-ink study, in reverse, L.177, as well as an alternative design,
L.176, was formerly in the Lanna collection. J. Springer mentions another pen-
drawing, in reverse, at Florence (photo, Braun 976).
102
Vienna. Second State
77. ST. PAUL
II. The work completed.
This is probably the earliest of the incomplete set of Apostles. The first state
indicates that Diirer first conceived the figure of the Apostle as standing in relief
against a blank sky, the surface of the ground being curved, as in some of the earlier
plates (B.29, 66, 86). One would think it unlikely that Diirer would have adopted
this scheme after engraving the St. Thomas, in which the figure seems to have been
planned from the first in relation to such background as there is, while the signature
and date are inconceivable without their context, were it not for the fact that he
returned to the early scheme in the St. Simon of 1523, which strongly resembles the
first state of St. Paul.
Drawing: a pen-and-ink study, in reverse, L.177, as well as an alternative design,
L.176, was formerly in the Lanna collection. J. Springer mentions another pen-
drawing, in reverse, at Florence (photo, Braun 976).
102