Segelschiff (Kogge) auf hoher See

Universitätsbibliothek Erlangen-Nürnberg

Description

This pen-and-ink drawing of a sailing ship on the high seas is one of the best-known sheets from the Erlangen collection. It is by Albrecht Altdorfer (1480-1538), one of the most famous artists of the so-called Danube School.

It depicts a carrack, a sailing ship from the late Middle Ages and early modern period that could be used as both a warship and a merchant vessel. The drawing from 1515, done in reddish ink, is a remarkable reinterpretation of a several decades older woodcut. Erhard Reuwich’s woodcut from Bernhard von Breydenbach’s famous "Pilgrimage to the Holy Land" from 1486 served as a model for this drawing. But while Reuwich had integrated the carrack into the port depiction of the southern Greek town of Methoni, Altdorfer dispensed with such an integration and placed the sailing ship at the centre of his drawing. In contrast to the woodcut, drawing with pen and ink allowed for a far more vivid and moving depiction of both the sailing ship and the wave-lashed sea.

Previously attributed to Albrecht Dürer or Wolf Huber, the print has now been clearly identified as the work of Albrecht Altdorfer.