Print collector's quarterly (4.1914)

In the same year that saw the blond and gossamer-
like Christopher, Altdorfer produced a remarkably
lovely Annunciation (B. 44), the second of his wood-
cut studies of artificial light, and so far the most
imaginative of his cuts. From a brilliantly lighted
hall the angel of the Annunciation leads ns into a
room where, at a little table between her bed and the
closed window, the Virgin is praying, her hands to-
gether over an open book on which the light falls from
a candle standing beside a goblet full of posies and a
little screen to shade her eyes. The strong light from
the hall falling across the floor gently illuminates the
darkness of the room, while the flicker of the can-
dle lights the Virgin’s face and hands and catches
points on her gown and on the pillows piled high on
the bed behind her. The figure of the angel dominates
the scene, and so gentle is his approach, and so great
the power that shines forth from him, that we can
readily believe that Altdorfer had in mind the
Mittit ad Virginem
Non quemvis angelum
Sed fortitudinem
Suarn, Arehangelum
Amator hominis
of the mediasval church. As for the management of
the light and shade, nothing further remained to be
done on a wood block cut by a formschneider save
Altdorfer’s own Saint Jerome in the Grotto and his
Death of the Virgin.
The Saint Jerome in the Grotto (B. 57), of which I
have just spoken, appears to follow the Annunciation
in chronological Order and was probably produced in
1515. Here Jerome, a lean and gnarled old man,

44