DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.52444#0098
CATALOGUE OF DURER’S ENGRAVINGS,
15 THE DREAM.— B 76; H 854; R 116; M 24.— Monogram.
Very fine impression. Black ink, clean wiped. From the Donnadieu
Collection.
The fine impressions in Paris, London, Dresden, and Berlin are all printed in
black ink, clean wiped. In London there is also a counterproof.
Heller assigns this plate to 1500-06. Retberg, misled by his Pirkheimer
theory (see below), places it about 1507. There is no reason, however, why
it should not belong to the same period as the “ Four Naked Women,” although
it is idealistic, or conventional, in the treatment of the female figure, as opposed
to the naturalistic treatment in the previous plate, the artist having been influ-
enced, probably, by his theoretical studies. The modeling of the flesh shows
greater technical skill than in the “ Four Women,” but is not as telling.
This is another of the much discussed plates, and those who are interested in
the Wolgemut theory will do well to look up Thausing (I, pp. 209 and 210).
The titles given to it are “ Idleness,” “ The Doctor’s Dream,” “ The Dream
Doctor,” and “The Dream of the Podagrist.” Heller most prosaically reduces
it to the representation of the effect of the heat of a stove, which inflames the
imagination of the dreamer. Retberg conjectures that it is a joke at Pirk-
heimer’s expense, in continuation of the somewhat indelicate insinuations in
Diirer’s letters to him from Venice:—The devil still makes him dream of love,
but Cupid tries in vain to walk on stilts, and his luck with the ladies has de-
serted him, as signified by the ball of Fortune, lying forgotten in a comer.
Vasari speaks of it as “representing a man sleeping in a bath-room, while
Venus is behind him inspiring his dreams with temptation, and Love, mounted
on stilts, capers and sports around him, while the Devil blows into his ear with
a pair of bellows.” According to Thausing it is “ a pictorial satire on senile
lust,” not addressed to Pirkheimer in particular (who, born in 1470, was not
“ senile ” at the time), but to mankind in general. Diirer’s studies of the nude,
in connection with the desire to convert them into pictures, and with the moral-
izing tendencies of the age, are sufficient to furnish the motive, whatever the
meaning. Thode (Jahrbuch, HI, p. 118) sees in the female figure a Venus,
and thinks that its forms and proportions are inconceivable without the influence
of the antique. It certainly quite closely resembles in pose the “ Eve ” (see No.
37), in which the influence of the antique has also been traced.
16
15 THE DREAM.— B 76; H 854; R 116; M 24.— Monogram.
Very fine impression. Black ink, clean wiped. From the Donnadieu
Collection.
The fine impressions in Paris, London, Dresden, and Berlin are all printed in
black ink, clean wiped. In London there is also a counterproof.
Heller assigns this plate to 1500-06. Retberg, misled by his Pirkheimer
theory (see below), places it about 1507. There is no reason, however, why
it should not belong to the same period as the “ Four Naked Women,” although
it is idealistic, or conventional, in the treatment of the female figure, as opposed
to the naturalistic treatment in the previous plate, the artist having been influ-
enced, probably, by his theoretical studies. The modeling of the flesh shows
greater technical skill than in the “ Four Women,” but is not as telling.
This is another of the much discussed plates, and those who are interested in
the Wolgemut theory will do well to look up Thausing (I, pp. 209 and 210).
The titles given to it are “ Idleness,” “ The Doctor’s Dream,” “ The Dream
Doctor,” and “The Dream of the Podagrist.” Heller most prosaically reduces
it to the representation of the effect of the heat of a stove, which inflames the
imagination of the dreamer. Retberg conjectures that it is a joke at Pirk-
heimer’s expense, in continuation of the somewhat indelicate insinuations in
Diirer’s letters to him from Venice:—The devil still makes him dream of love,
but Cupid tries in vain to walk on stilts, and his luck with the ladies has de-
serted him, as signified by the ball of Fortune, lying forgotten in a comer.
Vasari speaks of it as “representing a man sleeping in a bath-room, while
Venus is behind him inspiring his dreams with temptation, and Love, mounted
on stilts, capers and sports around him, while the Devil blows into his ear with
a pair of bellows.” According to Thausing it is “ a pictorial satire on senile
lust,” not addressed to Pirkheimer in particular (who, born in 1470, was not
“ senile ” at the time), but to mankind in general. Diirer’s studies of the nude,
in connection with the desire to convert them into pictures, and with the moral-
izing tendencies of the age, are sufficient to furnish the motive, whatever the
meaning. Thode (Jahrbuch, HI, p. 118) sees in the female figure a Venus,
and thinks that its forms and proportions are inconceivable without the influence
of the antique. It certainly quite closely resembles in pose the “ Eve ” (see No.
37), in which the influence of the antique has also been traced.
16