Plate 4 of The Lord’s Prayer, a set of 12 woodcuts published by Propylaen-Verlag, Berlin, in 1921. The poses of the three figures reflect the three stages of the prayer. Pechstein joined the Brücke in 1906 and after living in Paris for some months…

This magnificent woodcut from 1914 shows Kirchner’s friend Gerda Schilling with other figures seated in a boat with great black sails, as it moves past the distant shoreline of Fehmarn. The island in the Baltic had provided Kirchner with a complete…

With thanks to the Leicester Print Workshop.

Woodcut, 1910.

Woodcut, 1911.

Husband and wife Joachim and Anne are shown embracing at the Golden Gate after both receiving the same promise that a child will be born to them. Their embrace possesses a restrained beauty, observed by a small group slightly smaller in scale. Dürer…

An angel swinging a censer hovers above a lively and rich composition. In the background, the mother of the Virgin lies in bed, revealed by a parted curtain. The foreground however is typical of a birth scene, with female figures standing, sitting,…

Although the important figures in this composition are Mary’s parents, Joachim and Anne, the former holding his doffed hat protectively in front of his wife, Dürer gives the minor figures equal prominence. In particular the merchants occupied at the…

After the Angel Gabriel had announced to Mary that she would become the mother of the Lord Jesus, she visited her kinswoman Elizabeth in Judea. This visit is recorded in Luke1:39-56. Dürer’s vision of the encounter shows a visibly pregnant Mary…

Dürer has placed the vanishing point by the side of the stable. The resulting perspective with the open wall aspect allows for a tightly focused view of the Virgin Mary, the Christ child and angels. Joseph appears at the left, with a lamp and staff,…