DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.52907#0009
PREFACE.
This exhibition has been arranged in celebration of the fourth centenary
of Diirer’s death, which occurred on April 6th, 1528. The reputation
which he gained in his lifetime has remained undimmed by the lapse
of centuries. English writers have added their tribute to the eulogies
liberally bestowed on this great artist, and his work has been eagerly
sought by English collectors. It is largely to this fact that the British
Museum owes the excellence of its collection of Diirer’s work.
In respect of drawings, it stands certainly third, after the Albertina
at Vienna and the Berlin Kupferstichkabinett, among the collections
of the world. These are the three great collections of Diirer’s drawings.
There are many others containing excellent examples, such as Bremen,
the Louvre, the Uffizi, the Stadel Institute at Frankfurt, the Lubomirski
Museum at Lwow, the Musee Bonnat at Bayonne, and numerous private
collections ■ but none of these contains a large number, illustrating every
period of Diirer’s career. Neither in numbers nor in quality does the
British Museum collection approach the Albertina ; it is nearer in both
respects to the collection, much more recently formed, at Berlin. It
is rich both in early and late examples of Diirer’s work, and contains
specimens of almost every class of his drawings, with one important
exception : it has none of the studies for his famous pictures, such as
the Feast’of the Rose Garlands or the Heller Altar-piece, which adorn
some other collections. It contains, on the other hand, several studies
for important engravings, and these, in the present exhibition, have
been placed next to the engravings with which they are connected.
A Diirer exhibition, not on such a large scale, was held in the old
Gallery of the Department, in the White Wing, in 1909-10, but no catalogue
of it was printed. The present exhibition does not aim, as some Diirer
exhibitions have done, at illustrating the whole of Diirer’s career in
chronological order by showing his life’s work in every kind of medium.
That could only be done by the aid of reproductions, and would require
a far larger space than is here available. With only trifling exceptions
(nos. 1, 9, 168, 44:8-452) this exhibition has been confined to original
works by Diirer (supplemented in the case of drawings only by a selection
to illustrate the work of his immediate predecessors and his contemporaries
and followers at Nuremberg1). It is divided into three sections, Woodcuts,
1 The catalogue o£ the drawings not by Diirer has been written by Dr. K. T.
Parker.
This exhibition has been arranged in celebration of the fourth centenary
of Diirer’s death, which occurred on April 6th, 1528. The reputation
which he gained in his lifetime has remained undimmed by the lapse
of centuries. English writers have added their tribute to the eulogies
liberally bestowed on this great artist, and his work has been eagerly
sought by English collectors. It is largely to this fact that the British
Museum owes the excellence of its collection of Diirer’s work.
In respect of drawings, it stands certainly third, after the Albertina
at Vienna and the Berlin Kupferstichkabinett, among the collections
of the world. These are the three great collections of Diirer’s drawings.
There are many others containing excellent examples, such as Bremen,
the Louvre, the Uffizi, the Stadel Institute at Frankfurt, the Lubomirski
Museum at Lwow, the Musee Bonnat at Bayonne, and numerous private
collections ■ but none of these contains a large number, illustrating every
period of Diirer’s career. Neither in numbers nor in quality does the
British Museum collection approach the Albertina ; it is nearer in both
respects to the collection, much more recently formed, at Berlin. It
is rich both in early and late examples of Diirer’s work, and contains
specimens of almost every class of his drawings, with one important
exception : it has none of the studies for his famous pictures, such as
the Feast’of the Rose Garlands or the Heller Altar-piece, which adorn
some other collections. It contains, on the other hand, several studies
for important engravings, and these, in the present exhibition, have
been placed next to the engravings with which they are connected.
A Diirer exhibition, not on such a large scale, was held in the old
Gallery of the Department, in the White Wing, in 1909-10, but no catalogue
of it was printed. The present exhibition does not aim, as some Diirer
exhibitions have done, at illustrating the whole of Diirer’s career in
chronological order by showing his life’s work in every kind of medium.
That could only be done by the aid of reproductions, and would require
a far larger space than is here available. With only trifling exceptions
(nos. 1, 9, 168, 44:8-452) this exhibition has been confined to original
works by Diirer (supplemented in the case of drawings only by a selection
to illustrate the work of his immediate predecessors and his contemporaries
and followers at Nuremberg1). It is divided into three sections, Woodcuts,
1 The catalogue o£ the drawings not by Diirer has been written by Dr. K. T.
Parker.