Leseprobe

128 Albrecht Dürer Nuremberg 1471–1528 Nuremberg The Seven Sorrows of the Virgin 1495/96 Oil on softwood panel; 188.5×136 cm (total), each approx. 63×46 cm Entered the Kunstkammer from the estate of Lucas Cranach the Younger in 1588 Gal. nos. 1875–1881 Upon his return from northern Italy in 1495, Albrecht Dürer was able to gain one of his first major clients – the Ernestine elector of Saxony, Friedrich the Wise. Com- manding great political authority, Friedrich was embarking on extensive plans to modernize his electoral seat of Wittenberg, summoning renowned artists to the north. The Seven Sorrows of the Virgin was Dürer’s first piece painted for Witten- berg’s Schlosskirche. It depicts seven scenes from the life and Passion of Christ, which Mary, as his mother, had to endure: The Circumcision of Christ , Flight into Egypt , Christ among the Doctors , Christ Carrying the Cross , Crucifixion , Christ on the Cross , and Lamentation . The work originally included The Virgin as Mother of Sorrows (now in Munich, Alte Pinakothek) around which our smaller panels were likely grouped. The pendant piece, the Seven Joys of Mary , has not survived. Lucas Cranach the Younger died in 1556 and his estate, which interestingly included numerous works by Dürer, entered the collection of the Kunstkammer in Dresden in 1588. The central Marian panel was, however, not among them and eventually accessioned in Munich in 1804. The large panel was thus evidently sawed apart prior to 1588, leaving us unable to reconstruct the original configuration with certainty. Several copy drawings made by the Cranach workshop around 1550 and now preserved in Erlangen show six of the scenes of sorrow, but also serve as a visual record of many other works by Dürer in the Saxon city of Wittenberg.  |  re