Representative image of Albrecht Dürer, Knight, Death and Devil. (Image Credits: Wikimedia.Commons)
A 500-year-old engraving by German Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer was rescued from being thrown away at a rubbish tip in Kent and was sold for £22,680 in September 2024, according to the BBC. The artwork, titled The Knight, Death and the Devil , was put up for auction with an initial estimate ranging from £10,000 to £20,000. Mat Winter, who was an avid visitor to the local tip for antiques since he was 10, found the artwork among the belongings a woman was preparing to throw away. Along with his other finds, Winter had stored the artwork for about 13 years until he sought an appraisal in 2024, at 24. The artwork Knight, Death and the Devil was completed in 1513 and is considered one of the three works commonly grouped as Dürer’s Meisterstiche or master engravings. The other two works are called Saint Jerome in His Study and Melencolia I , both of which were made in 1514. Dürer, who lived from 1471 to 1528, worked as a painter and printmaker and spearheaded the Northern Renaissance as a leading figure. Winter’s print was sold through Rare Book Auctions’ inaugural sale, which ran online and ended on 18 September 2024.
The buyer was reported to be a private collector in Germany, meaning the engraving went back to the country where Dürer was born. After it caught his attention, he asked the woman if he could keep it, and she agreed. The three prints personify the different themes of moral virtue, active life, theological contemplation, and intellectual life. One interpretation claims it represents the Christian knight persevering despite the presence of death and evil. Renowned for the technical quality of woodcuts and copper-plate engravings, his work was instrumental in bridging the gap between the Italian Renaissance and Northern European art.
