A Pastoral Landscape with Shepherds Playing a Viola and Panpipes

1496/1497

Albrecht Dürer

Associated Names
Albrecht Dürer

Artist, German, 1471 - 1528

This is an ornate manuscript page. The manuscript is adorned with decorative borders featuring floral patterns at the top of the page and a large letter "A" embellished with vines. The text, written in Greek, is in the center of the page. Below the script, the painting depicts a pastoral landscape. On the lower left, a seated man with a brown beard plays a stringed instrument, resembling a viola or a lute, while on the lower right, another person clad in blue plays panpipes. Surrounding them are various animals including sheep and goats on top of small green hills with a small river in the center. Trees rise along the sides of the page, and two small coats of arms hang from branches on either side.

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    watercolor and gouache heightened with pen and ink and gold, pasted back onto page 1of "Idylls and Other Texts"

  • Credit Line

    Woodner Collection

  • Dimensions

    page size: 31 x 20.3 cm (12 3/16 x 8 in.)
    overall size (book closed): 32.4 x 21.6 cm (12 3/4 x 8 1/2 in.)

  • Accession Number

    2005.1.1.a

Associated Artworks

Idylls and Other Texts

Albrecht Dürer, Theocritus, Hesiod, Aldus Manutius

1495

Liber Bilibaldi Pirckheimer (Bookplate of Willibald Pirckheimer)

Albrecht Dürer

1502

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Willibald Pirckheimer [1470-1530]; then by descent, possibly through Pirckheimer's sister, Barbara Straube [died 1560] or his eldest daughter, Felicitas; the colletion reunited through Felicitas' husband, Willibald Imhoff; then by descent to Hans Hieronymous Imhoff; by whom sold to Matthäus van Overbeck [died 1638], 1634; Earl of Sunderland (library shelfmark, B4:36, on inside front cover) (sale, London, Puttick and Simpson, 16 March 1883, lot 12, 345, to Quartich); Howell Wills (sale, London, Sotheby's, 11 July 1894, lot 831, to Quaritch, from whom acquired by Yates Thompson in 1897); Henry Yates Thompson (sale, London, Sotheby's, 3 June 1919, lot 29, bought in and subsequently presented by Yates Thompson to the London Library); London Library (sale, London, Sotheby's, 14 June 1966, lot 66); purchased by Edelmann; Schickedanz collection; (Rolf Kistner, Nuremberg); purchased by Ian Woodner, New York, 14 May 1985; by inheritance to his daughters, Andrea and Dian Woodner, New York, 1990.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1897

  • Monuments in Typography, Quaritch, London, 1897, no. 307.

1906

  • Early German Art, Burlington Fine Arts Club, London, 1906, no. 23 (as attributed to Durer).

1971

  • Albrech Dürer 1471-1971, Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg, 1971, no. 296.

1986

  • Dibujos de los siglos XIV al XX: Colección Woodner, Museo del Prado, Madrid, 1986-87, no. 57.

  • Meisterzeichnungen aus Sechs Jahrhunderten: Die Sammlung Ian Woodner, Haus der Kunst, Munich and Vienna, 1986, no. 48.

1987

  • Master Drawings: The Woodner Collection, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1987, no. 47.

1990

  • Master Drawings from the Woodner Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1990, no. 58.

1995

  • The Touch of the Artist: Master Drawings from the Woodner Collections, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1995-1996, no. 19.

1997

  • Six Centuries/Six Artists, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1997.

2006

  • Master Drawings from the Woodner Collections, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2006 - 2007.

2008

  • Medieval to Modern: Recent Acquisitions of Drawings, Prints, and Illustrated Books, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 2008, no. 30 b.

2009

  • Heaven on Earth: Manuscript Illuminations from the National Gallery of Art, NGA, 2009.

2013

  • Albrecht Dürer: Master Drawings, Watercolors, and Prints from the Albertina. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 2013 (exhibited hors catalogue).

2017

  • The Woodner Collections: Master Drawings from Seven Centuries, NGA, 2017.

2019

  • Albrecht Dürer, Albertina Museum, Vienna, 2019-2020, no. 78.

Wikidata ID

Q64534015

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