16TH CENTURY OLD MASTER PRINT OF THE ANNUNCIATION BY MARCANTONIO RAIMONDI, AFTER ALBRECHT DURER

Print by Marcantonio Raimondi, after Albrecht Durer
Probably Venice, Italy; ca. 1505-15
Printed on laid paper with watermark

Approximate size: 8.375 x 11.625 in.

An engraved copy by Marcantonio Raimondi after Albrecht Dürer's ‘Annunciation’ woodcut from his series of twenty prints depicting the 'Life of the Virgin.'

 The Virgin prays pensively at a desk on the right while the Archangel Gabriel approaches from the left. A tablet rests along the wall featuring the monogram "AD,” which imitates Dürer's original signature. Raimondi copied and printed seventeen scenes after Dürer's original series of twenty plates depicting the Virgin’s life.

 The painter and art historian, Giorgio Vasari reported how Raimondi was selling these copies as originals by Dürer in Venice during the year 1506. The brazen copying of his inventions would lead Dürer to initiate one of the earliest intellectual property rights disputes in Western history. Nonetheless, Raimondi's admiration of Dürer was more than commercial, rather, Dürer had an impacting influence on Raimondi’s own career as a prolific engraver. At least seventy-four of Raimondi’s prints were copied after Dürer’s inventions and he frequently borrowed landscape motifs borrowed from Dürer in a variety of his earliest compositions.

Condition:  Unframed, trimmed just outside the margins. Small repair to the lower left corner. Traces of recent mounting tape to the reverse.