(Nuremberg 1471-1528) Portrait of Ulrich Varnbüler, 1522, Chiaroscuro-woodcut printed with two tone blocks (light- and dark green) on black outline print, signed with the full name and dated 1522, on laid paper, with watermark "Crescent” (Meder No. 258), printing date around 1620, the address of Janssen at lower margin cut off, 43 x 32,8 cm, Bartsch 155, Meder 256 III a (of III b), Schoch/Mende/Scherbaum 256 III a (of III b), mounted, unframed, (Sch)

Provenance:
According to a label on the reverse P & Colnaghi & Co, 15 Old Bond Street, London; Private collection, Germany.

Very excellent, brilliant and even impression of the IIIrd state a (of III b) of the edition by Willem Janssen, Amsterdam c. 1620. Trimmed closely to framing lines, the losses at upper and lower margin retouched, a tiny foxing in the chest at the left, other wise in very excellent state of preservation and in ist printing quality extremely rare.

The present woodcut was Dürer’s most significant and largest portrait print which the artist ever published. It shows Ulrich Varnbühler (1474-1544), jurist and scholar. In 1507 Varnbühler was appointed chief clerk of the Imperial Supreme Court in Speyer and was made Chancellor in 1531. From 1515 onwards Varnbühler maintained close friendship with Albrecht Dürer and Willibald Pirckheimer. In 1519 he published his translation of "Dulce bellum inexperto" by Erasmus von Rotterdam. In 1522 Pirckheimer edited Varnbühler’s translation of Lucian’s "Navis sue vota". This collaboration strengthened the friendship between the three men. Dürer’s dedication on the woodcut reads in a free translation: (comp. Horst H. Figge, "Ein kryptischer Text des Erasmus auf Dürers Varnbüler-Bildnis", Universität Freiburg, 2010, p.10; "Durch dieses Bild versucht der Nuremberger Albrecht Dürer, Ulrich Varnbüler bekannt zu machen, sowohl denen in der Ferne als Erzkanzler des römisch-kaiserlichen Reichsregiments, dem er zu größtem Dank verpflichtet ist, als auch jedweder Nachwelt als großartigen Menschen." (Albrecht Dürer wishes to make known to posterity and to preserve by his likeness his singular friend, Ulrich surnamed Varnbühler, Chancellor of the Supreme Court of the Roman Empire and at the same time privately a distinguished scholar of language”)

No contemporary chiaroscuro-edition of the present woodcut is known. During the so-called „Dürer-Renaissance“ in the Netherlands in the late 16th century Hendrik Hondius edited a monochrome edition of the print in 1600. Thereafter the woodblock was passed to Willem Janssen in Amsterdam who after 1620 published a chiaroscuro-edition of two block in light- and dark green or light yellow over black resp. brownish outlines. Strauss mentions eleven chiaroscuro-impressions in museums; one copy is preserved in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Two chiaroscuro-impressions of a yellowish-brown and brownish block were offered by Karl & Faber in Munich and by Swann Galleries in New York in 2016. The preliminary drawing for the present woodcut in black and brown chalk is preserved in the Albertina in Vienna (Inv. Nr. 48489).