• 

Specific

• Author:

  DÜRER Albrecht  (1471-1528)

• Title:

  FIDANZAMENTO DELLA VERGINE - THE BETROTHAL OF THE VIRGIN - VERLOBUNG MARIENS

• Data: ca. 1504 - 1505
• Format: (mm 295 x 208)
• Comparison bibliographic: Cfr. Meder 194 (I/III); Strauss 97; Bartsch 82; Hollstein 194; Panofsky 302.

Product's description

Some spectators convey the impression of a crowd, accentuated by the participants overlapping the central arch in this optical illusion experiment. Mary, who has taken a vow of perpetual chastity, is here betrothed to a "safe" protector,
Joseph, an elderly carpenter whose wife had recently died. In this sheet, Joseph is bald, has a crooked nose, and no moustache.  The young girl with the winged headdress on the right is based on Dürer's drawing of a "Nuremberg Lady in Church Dress" (SD.1500/5), dated 1500, on which the artist engraved the following inscription: "Think of me in your kingdom in 1500; thus dressed one goes to church in Nuremberg". Dürer introduces a touch of humour by depicting the man in the top hat on the left, from behind. It also appears in the "Ecce Homo" of the "Green Passion" (SD.1504/36), drawn in 1504, in the same sense and thus apparently later than the woodcut. 
The figures occupy exactly half the pictorial area. The strict symmetry of the foreground contrasts sharply with the dark and cluttered interior of the Temple, with its single, heterogeneous Gothic architectural element, an obvious reference to the Old Law.  This is further emphasized by the owl, a symbol of the night and darkness of the synagogue. The ornamentation of the splay of the arch depicts two naked men on unicorns fending off wild women riding lions, perhaps an allusion to the victory over lust through chastity. 
The similarity of this woodcut to Raphael's painting, dated 1504, in the Brera, Milan, suggests a common source, perhaps Perugino's "The Wedding at Cana" of about 1503-1504, or during Raphael's apprenticeship in Perugino's workshop.