The Dürer Society (12.1911)

XIV.
Sketch for the Angel holding the Imperial
Crown on the Triumphal Arch.
British Museum {Add. MS. 5231, fol. 99 V.). Pen and ink. Size of sheet,
33 by 22 cm., 13 by 8} in. The reproduction is exactly of the same size as the
drawing. No watermark.
The purpose of this slight and hasty sketch is explained by comparison
with the finished woodcut, a detail of which is reproduced on Pl. XV.
The literature on this drawing is the same as that quoted on Pl. XIII.
The only other drawing that has been recognized as a study for the
Triumphal Arch is the sketch, preserved in the Dresden codex, for
Philip the Handsome in the pedigree.
XV.
Detail from the Triumphal Arch of Maximilian I.
(woodcut, B. 138, reduced).
The reproduction has been made from the most recent Vienna edition
(Beilage to "Jahrbuch," Bd. iv., 1885-6). The portion here repro-
duced measures in the original 36.5 by 29 cm., 14I by 11} in.
XVI.
Design for a Sighting Instrument. 1515.
British Museum {Add. MS. 5229, fol. 131). Pen and ink, 12.2 by 17.4 cm.,
by ^ in. No watermark.
A very similar drawing, dated 1514, of upright shape, without the
word " glas" in the frame, is at Dresden (Bruck, " Das Skizzenbuch
von Albrecht Durer," 1905, Taf. 135). The mechanism was finally
introduced into the woodcut of an artist drawing a seated man, B. 146,
published in the " Underweysung der Messung" in 1525.1 Here
Durer shows the instrument in actual use, the artist applying his eye
to the hole in the little shield, the height of which can be adjusted by
fitting it into the various notches on the front of the column (here
also sketched separately), which can be shifted at will from left to
right along the table. It will be seen from the woodcut that the gap
between the shield and the upright column is designed to accommo-
date the artist's nose.
1 In my British Museum “ Catalogue of Woodcuts," L, 343, I have described this drawing by
an oversight as a study for B. 147, instead of B. 146.
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