Art Institute of Chicago

Sammelband containing De Symmetria Partium (1532), De Varietate Figurarum (1534), Etliche underricht zu befestigung der Stett Schloss und Flecke (1527), and Underweysung der Messung (1538)

Albrecht Dürer

Date

1525–38

Medium

Book of letterpress text and woodcut illustations on cream laid paper, extra illustrated with a woodcut in black on ivory laid paper, tipped in after the front flyleaf; in full alum-tawed pigskin over beveled wooden boards, sewn on raised thongs, blind tooled ‘all-over’ with small tools, with two brass hook-clasp fastenings and hand-sewn headbands

Culture

Germany

Department

Prints and Drawings

Institution

Art Institute of Chicago

A posthumous impression of Albrecht Dürer’s first Knot has been tipped in opposite the frontispiece of this copy of On Human Proportion , Dürer’s book on anatomy for artists. It is the first element in a collected volume of late editions of several texts by the master ( On Human Proportion , 1532–38, On Fortifications , 1527, and The Painter’s Manual , 1538). This second state of the woodcut is the only one to include an ad monogram. Dürer’s fame was already such that his eminently recognizable nested initials had become an ornamental motif in their own right. Annotations on the print’s verso date it to August 14, 1606, about when the sheet was reprinted and probably when it was purchased.

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