The Knight, Death and the Devil, 1513
This is a good-quality modern reproduction of this famous copperplate engraving by the German artist Albrecht Dürer – the original is dated 1513. The engraving is black and white - not brown and white as the photo would suggest. It has a brown card mount.A Christian soldier on a horse is beset by Death (snub nosed figure with horns – holding an hour-glass – also on a horse) and the Devil behind him - with a wolf -like face, an alligator snout, ram’s horns, donkey’s ears, and a huge single horn.
The Knight, his horse and dog all ignore them and continue on their way almost as if in a trance. Even the nearby landscape seems hostile – with a tempting glimpse of a faraway hill town visible between the rocky outcrops.
In 1504, in Rotterdam the humanist philosopher Erasmus wrote A Handbook for the Christian Soldier: In he compares the struggle of the Christian with that of the soldier – a concept that goes right back to the letters of St Paul to the Ephesians.
Erasmus wrote:
“Because you must fight three unfair enemies, the flesh, the devil and the world’…… ‘all those spooks and phantoms which come upon you as in the very gorges of Hades must be deemed for nought…”
In this engraving Dürer has visualised this idea.
This print is in a pleasing modern frame measuring 11½ x 9¼ inches.
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