Vente anonyme ; Londres, Christie's, 5 juillet 2007, n° 75 (comme Ecole flamande d'après Albrecht Dürer, circa 1525) ;

Galerie De Jonckheere, Paris ;

Acquis auprès de cette dernière par les parents des actuels propriétaires en 2008 ;

Collection particulière, France

The source of our painting is the famous engraving by Albrecht Dürer, dated to around 1501, which illustrates the legend of the Roman general Placidus, to whom Christ on the cross appears between the antlers of the stag he was pursuing during a hunting party, and who becomes Saint Eustace after his conversion (fig. 1). Dürer's composition was inspired by a painting by Pisanello that also depicts the Vision of Saint Eustace (National Gallery, London, fig. 2). Dürer's print is remarkable both for the dexterity with which he handles his burin and for the delicacy of his depiction of the landscape, reminiscent of the work of Jan van Eyck. This exceptional print gave rise to both engraved and painted copies during the 16th century. In addition to our painting, there is another copy in the Galleria Doria Pamphilij in Rome, less remarkable and with a few variations on our panel, and another version in the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art (Kansas City fig. 3), which is very close to our painting and of similar dimensions. The painter of our work, a particularly talented and virtuoso copyist, used an impression of Dürer's print as a template in an extremely precise way, insofar as several important elements appear to be of the same dimensions (our panel is, however, larger in height than the print, which measures roughly 35.7 x 25.5 cm, which must have given rise to some adjustments on the part of the painter). However, some variations have been introduced. In the lower left-hand corner, for example, our panel shows wild strawberries, which do not appear in the engraving. The landscape on the left is also much more developed in the panel. Our painter has also placed a small white terrier on the left, which does not appear in Dürer's work. Finally, although Saint Eustace adopts the same attitude - kneeling and in prayer - his costume and hairstyle differ from the engraving. Perhaps the painter has here used the features of the person who commissioned the work.

Prints by the German master Albrecht Dürer were copied very quickly after they were produced. The most famous example is that of Marcantonio Raimondi, Raphael's engraver, who copied the series of thirty-six xylographs making up the Small Passion that he had acquired during a stay in Venice, even going so far as to emulate the monogram in order to claim it for his own (1).

Dürer's virtuoso use of the print medium, and the way he used it to disseminate his compositions on a large scale, fascinated many of his contemporaries and followers, who copied, transposed and interpreted his engraved works in Western Europe and much further afield. Elements from the famous Apocalypse series (1498) can be found in Peruvian wall decorations, Iranian manuscripts and Spanish stained-glass windows. Historiography has focused at length on engraved copies after Dürer, but far less frequently on painted copies, which nevertheless existed from the beginning of the sixteenth century (2). Flemish and Brabant centres such as Bruges, Ghent, Brussels, Leuven and Antwerp were familiar with Dürer's work, not least because the painter stayed there in 1520-1521. His travel diary, written in great detail, shows that he sold and offered numerous prints to his fellow painters, as well as to local collectors and patrons.

It reads: “From Antwerp, I am sending Mr Aegidius [Aegidius, Pieter Gillis (1486-1533), clerk of the city of Antwerp from 1509 to 1532, a close friend of Erasmus], bailiff to King Charles, a Saint Jerome in his cell, the Melancolia, the three new Virgins, Saint Anthony and the Veronica. He will have to give them to Master Conrad [Meit], the excellent sculptor whose equal I have not seen and who is in the service of Lady Marguerite, the daughter of Emperor Maximilian. Also, I am giving Mr Aegidius a Saint Eustace and a Nemesis » (3). The presence of Dürer's engravings in Antwerp seems to have begun as early as the beginning of the16th century. The painter Adriaen van Overbeke, for example, drew inspiration for his Holy Family (ca. 1520, Bonnenfantenmuseum, Maastricht, no. 530) from a woodcut by Dürer depicting the Holy Family surrounded by angels (1503-1504). Other artists working in Antwerp were inspired by Dürer's work. Such is the case of Joos van Cleve in his Ecce Homo scene from the Saint Reinhold polyptych (National Museum, Warsaw). In Germany, the painter Hans Hoffmann (1520 - c.1591) specialised in copies after Dürer in the second half of the sixteenth century, once again demonstrating the incredible reception of the Nuremberg (4) master's work in northern Europe.

Dürer's Saint Eustace, in particular, served as a model for painters in the Netherlands. The same white dog seated on the right can be seen in Jan Gossaert's Adoration of the Magi (from 1510-1515), now in the National Gallery in London (NG2790). However, unlike our painting, this is more a case of borrowing motifs rather than copying literally.

The wide circulation of Dürer's prints in Flanders and Brabant is a first indication of where our panel was produced. The use of oak, although not confined to the Netherlands, is another indication. The painter also seems to have been familiar with Flemish motifs. The small white terrier on the left can be seen in the Vanité by the Bruges painter Hans Memling (c. 1435-1440-1494) in the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Strasbourg, which may have served as a model for our artist. It is also likely that this little dog is an amusing nod to Jan van Eyck's famous painting The Arnolfini Wedding (1434) in the National Gallery in London (fig. 4). The red tunic of Saint Eustace also seems to be Flemish-inspired. Lastly, the landscape in the background is reminiscent of the work of Joachim Patinir, while the execution displays important stylistic similarities with the style of Jan Mostaert. 

1.    Giorgio Vasari describes this episode: see the life of Marcantonio Raimondi in the second edition of The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects 1568. Regarding this question, see Christopher L. C. E. Witcombe, Copyright in the Renaissance. Prints and the Privilegio in Sixteenth-century Venice and Rome, Leyde, Boston, 2004, p. 81-82

2.    We refer here to the work by Andrea Bubenik, Reframing Albrecht Dürer: The Appropriation of Art, 1528-1700, Surrey, 2013 or to the recent exhibition catalogue for Dürer war hier. Eine Reise wird Legende (Peter van den Brink dir.), Aix-la-Chapelle, Suermondt Ludwig Museum, London, National Gallery, 18 July – 24 October 2021 and 20 November 2021 – 27 February 2022.

3.    Albrecht Dürer. Journal de voyage aux Pays-Bas 1520-1521 (translation by Stan Hugue), Paris, 2009, p. 35.

4.    Here we are referring to the catalogue of the exhibition held in Nuremberg: Hans Hoffmann. A European artist of the Renaissance, 2022 (dir. Yasmin Doosry).

We would like to thank Peter van den Brink for kindly confirming the period of execution of this work following his visual examination of it on 2 July 2024.