Album with Twelve Engravings of The Passion, a Woodcut of Christ as the Man of Sorrows, and a Metalcut of St. Jerome in Penitence

Israhel van Meckenem|Anonymous, German, Cologne, 15th century|Anonymous, Netherlandish, 15th century

late 15th century · Engravings, two touched with gold; woodcut, hand-colored; metalcut, hand-colored; manuscript in dark brown ink with red, and blue initials and flourishes; bound in blind-stamped leather. · Drawings and Prints

This fascinating album provides vivid testimony to the way in which prints were used in the fifteenth century. Twelve outstanding early impressions of Israhel van Meckenem’s engravings of the Passion are interleaved with manuscript text of the Hundred Meditations on the Passion of Christ. The album also includes two rare devotional prints, both hand-colored, as well as liturgical calendars and several devotional texts in Dutch. The entirety was bound into a now well-worn fifteenth-century Netherlandish leather flap binding decorated with geometrical patterns and a stamp with animals and text.

Artist

Israhel van Meckenem|Anonymous, German, Cologne, 15th century|Anonymous, Netherlandish, 15th century

Date

late 15th century

Medium

Engravings, two touched with gold; woodcut, hand-colored; metalcut, hand-colored; manuscript in dark brown ink with red, and blue initials and flourishes; bound in blind-stamped leather.

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

Purchase, Joseph Pulitzer Bequest and 2002 Benefit Fund; and The Chester Dale Collection, Bequest of Chester Dale, Gifts of Bessie Potter Vonnoh, Henry Walters and Anonymous, and other gifts, bequests, and funds, by exchange, 2003