(Nuremberg 1471-1528)
The young peasant and his wife, c. 1497-98, engraving on fine laid paper, monogrammed AD in the plate, 10,7 x 7,5 cm, cropped just within plate marks, Bartsch 83, Meder 86 a (of f), mounted, framed, (Sch)

Very excellent, clear early impression with rich contrasts, Meder 86 a (of f), prior to all traces of wiping. Cropped just within plate marks. Slightly browned, otherwise in an excellent condition. Very rare in this condition of early state.

Around 1497 Dürer executed a series of small-format depictions of peasants whose background of creation and interpretation have not yet been fully clarified. The figure types probably represent visitors to the Nuremberg marketplace. Dürer may have observed them during his regular visits there. The market was in the immediate vicinity of his house and was also a popular trading center for his prints, which his wife offered for sale there.
In posture, clothing and movements of the figures, the depictions are presumably most closely associated with the genre of graphic satire that Dürer had already developed in his woodcuts for the "Ship of Fools" and were intended to serve the entertainment of the city bourgeoisie. Around twenty years later, Dürer took up a similar theme in the engraving „The peasant and his wife at the market“ (1519), which is offered as lot 9 in this auction and also provides the impression of a satirical snapshot.