American and European prints come to auction at Bonhams & Butterfields on 11 May 2009 featuring a remarkable collection of Albrecht Dürer woodcuts from the early 16th century. The sale, to be simulcast to the auctioneer’s San Francisco and Los Angeles salesrooms, will include a broad selection of lithographs, etchings and aquatints coming to auction from estates, trusts, and private and institutional collections. Selected Dürer works will be exhibited in London during the London Print Fair (April 22-26, 2009) followed by preview exhibitions in California prior to the start of the sale.

Bonhams’ US prints sales routinely feature Old Masters, 19th Century and Modern prints, Latin American prints and Contemporary works. The Spring 2009 sale’s assemblage of Dürer works should intrigue collectors and institutional curators given their fine condition and rich impressions. According to Judith Eurich, Prints Dept. Director at Bonhams & Butterfields, “These rare prints come to auction with much anticipation, several of the lots are complete sets, several examples bearing the collector’s stamps of noted persons. The May sale will be of considerable interest to Old Master print collectors.”

Highlights include the engraving St Jerome in His Study completed in 1514 and estimated to bring as much as $35,000. Dürer’s earlier impression The Virgin and Child with Monkey was printed circa 1498 and is estimated at $20/25,000. The complete set of woodcuts from the 1511 edition of the series The Life of the Virgin (1502-1510) includes examples in very good condition with depictions of the life of the Virgin Mary (est. $80/120,000).

Dürer had begun The Life of the Virgin in 1501, completing the set of 20 impressions over the next decade. The auctioneers describe the series as Dürer’s emphasize on the narrative aspects of the image through use of graceful Renaissance architecture, noting that the artist refrained from the explosive and violent nature seen in his earlier woodcuts of The Apocalypse, which he began around 1496. Several prints within this set were previously in the collection of A.J. Lamme, a painter, art dealer and (until 1870) Director of the Muséé Boymans in Rotterdam.

Another complete set of Dürer prints comprises 36 woodcuts. The Small Passion was begun in 1508, completed in 1510, and published the year after. With a focus on Jesus as savior, the set tells the story of mankind -- beginning with The Fall of Man and concluding with The Last Judgment. The largest of all of Dürer’s series, and likely the most popular, the impressions include stamps from several collectors including those of the noted Walburg Collection. The Small Passion could bring $70/90,000 in May.

Another complete Dürer set is titled The Engraved Passion (est. $45/60,000), dated 1507-1513. These 16 engravings were conceived for the art lover rather than the religious devotee, they stress spiritual suffering more than physical torture, never losing sight of the spiritual dignity of Christ. In these, Dürer utilized a new mode of engraving to create a highly dramatic chiaroscuro effect. One of the impressions bears the collector stamp of J.C. de Pomal, a Vienna-based historian who was said to have amassed as many as 1,700 Old Master prints, many of which were sold at auction in the 1830s.

Additional lots of Dürer’s work include The Sudarium Held by Two Angels, an engraving expected to bring $10/15,000, and The Penance of St John Chrysostom, a 1497 engraving estimated at $6,000 to $8,000.