All prints: SADELER Johann I (1550 - 1600)

Johann Sadeler I (1550 - 1600): Mankind before the Flood - c. 1581

Price: € 12 000

Engraving, 348 x 448 mm. Hollstein 264.

A very fine impression, printed on laid paper, trimmed to the borderline. Excellent condition. Upper part of a collector's mark printed on the lower edge of the sheet. Tiny 8 mm cut on the lower edge in the centre. Slight vertical fold.

This print, engraved after Dirck Barendsz (1534-1592), has a counterpart: Humanity before the Last Judgement (Hollstein 265; see for example the impression in the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden). The two prints are composed in the same way: in the foreground, a joyful assembly indulges in the pleasures of food, music and love, seemingly unaware of the coming threat represented in the background: here, the Flood, there, the Last Judgement.

References: J.R. Judson, Dirck Barendsz, Amsterdam, 1970, pp. 126-31, no. 72.