The Dürer Society (5.1902)

IX.

DURER. Head of Christ.
Collotype from the charcoal drawing (i2s by 8hn.) on paper stained brown^ signed and
dated 1503, in the British Museum (Lippmann 231).
An inscription in Diirer’s hand, so faint as to be almost illegible, records that he drew this
face in his sickness.

DURER. Head of an Old Man.

Collotype from the charcoal drawing (nt by 8% inf dated 1508, in the British Museum,

This very remarkable and vigorous drawing, derived, like most of the Diirer drawings in the
Museum, from the Sloane volume 5218, was attributed for some years to Matthaus Griinewald,
presumably on account of that painter’s known predilection for the grotesque and abnormal. It was
not reproduced, therefore, in Dr. Lippmann’s third volume, and is published here for the first time.
For some years past it has been restored to Diirer, and the attribution has found general acceptance.
The writing at the top, “hye conrat verkell altag (?) 1508,” which gives the sitter’s name, is certainly
in Diirer’s hand, though it has been re-touched in places. The monogram, though much more
lightly drawn than the rest, may be genuine. The date has been much tampered with, and seems
originally to have been no darker than the monogram. There is some reason to suppose that it was
originally 1503, and in style the drawing agrees extremely well with other charcoal studies of that
date, such as the Head of Christ, here reproduced, the head of a man which stands next to it at the
British Museum, and the portrait of a youth, dated 1503, in the Academy at Vienna. Some parts
of the drawing itself have been re-touched with Indian ink.

XI. /
DURER. Sketch of the Monument of a Knight and Lady.
Collotype from the pen and ink drawing (10 by (Ainlj in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence,
There are two repetitions of this drawing, in the Berlin Cabinet (Lippmann 48) and in Christ
Church Library, Oxford. Both seem to be inferior to the Florence version, but even that is not
quite above suspicion. The monogram and date are certainly not genuine.
According to the commonly received opinion,1 Diirer made this design for Peter Vischer the
Elder to cast in bronze. Vischer made, in fact, two tombs which agree in the main with Diirer’s
drawing. The first was for Count Hermann VIII. of Henneberg (d. 1535) and his wife Elizabeth,
Margravine of Brandenburg (d. 1507). This is at Romhild, some way south of Meiningen. The
second tomb, at Hechingen, in the Principality of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, is that of Count
Eitel Friedrich II. of Hohenzollern (d. 1512) and his wife Margaret of Brandenburg (d. 1496). The
drawing agrees with the Romhild tomb in several details, especially of costume, which were altered in
the Hechingen monument; on the other hand, the attitude and gesture of the Count agree more closely
with the latter. Dr. Bode suggests that after the Romhild tomb was already in existence Count Eitel
Friedrich ordered a similar tomb for Hechingen, and Diirer then made a sketch for the proposed
improvements.2 Dr. Ludwig Justi, a strenuous champion of the originality and versatility of the elder
Vischer, will not hear of his taking designs from any other artist. He suggests that if the sketch is
by Diirer at all, which he doubts, it can only be a reminiscence of the two monuments, drawn after a
visit to Vischer’s workshop.3

1 Derived from Bergau, “Anzeiger ftir Kunde der Deutschen Vorzeit,” 1869. 354.
2 “ Geschichte der Deutschen Plastik,” 151.
3 “ Repertorium fur Kunstwissenschaft,” XXIV., 48, 49.

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