ALBRECHT ALTDORFER
CIRCA 1482/85-1538
113 Christ Carrying the Cross
Pen and black ink, gray wash, and black chalk; diam. 30.4
cm(nI5/i6Ín.)
86.00.46 5 (SEE PLATE 14)
MARKS AND INSCRIPTIONS: None.
PROVENANCE: Gôsta Stenman, Stockholm (sale, Chris-
tie's, London, December 12, 1985, lot 341); art market,
Boston.
EXHIBITIONS: Albrecht Altdorfer: Zeichnungen, Deckfar-
benmalerei, Druckgraphik, Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche
Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin, and Museen
der Stadt Regensburg, February-June 1988, no. 97 (cat-
alogue by H. Mielke).
BIBLIOGRAPHY: G. R. Goldner and L. Hendrix, "A
New Altdorfer Drawing," Burlington Magazine 129, no.
ion (June 1987), pp. 383-87; J. Rowlands with the as-
sistance of G. Bartrum, The Age of Durer and Holbein:
German Drawings 1400-1550 (London, 1988), p. 158; C.
Andersson, "Berlin and Regensburg. Albrecht Altdor-
fer: Works on Paper," Burlington Magazine 130, no. 1023
(June 1988), p. 487; B. Butts, "Albrecht Altdorfer:
Zeichnungen, Deckfarbenmalerei, Druckgraphik, "
Master Drawings 26, no. 3 (Autumn 1988), pp. 279-80.
ALONGSIDE THE SMALL-SCALE, EXQUISITELY FINISHED
drawings on color-grounded paper for which Altdorfer
is best known is a smaller number of freer pen sketches
and drawings preparatory to further works, including
this, his only surviving design for a stained-glass win-
dow. Unknown before its appearance in the sale room in
1985, it was subsequently published as by Altdorfer by
the present authors (Goldner and Hendrix 1987). Its
many parallels with Altdorfer's oeuvre include the mon-
umental, relieflike concentration of figures, which recalls
the panel of Christ Carrying the Cross from the Saint
Florian Altarpiece of circa 1509-18 (Austria, Augustiner-
Chorherrenstift St. Florian). Among his accepted draw-
ings, it is closest overall to Christ Carrying the Cross
(Erlangen, Graphische Sammlung der Universitàt inv.
B.Sio), which is also a rather free study in pen and black
ink and gray wash. As in the present drawing, that in
Erlangen shows the fallen Christ in a manner unique to
contemporary depictions of the subject, emphasizing his
bent left leg and the exposed soles of his feet. The excep-
tionally varied line work, which is particularly promi-
nent in the figure of Christ, appears in The Lamentation
and Pyramus and Thisbe (both Erlangen, Graphische
Sammlung der Universitàt inv. 6.807, B.8o6). It is pos-
sible that the present drawing was intended to form part
of a series of stained-glass designs representing the
Passion.262 CENTRAL EUROPEAN SCHOOL • ALTDORFER