Georg Pencz's engraving, “Tobit Buries One of the Children of Israel”, 1543

Georg Pencz (c1500–1550)

“Tobit Buries One of the Children of Israel” (Tobie donnant la sépulture à un des enfans d’Israel), 1543, second plate from the series of seven plates, “The Story of Tobit” (TIB 16.13[324]–19[325]).

Engraving on fine laid paper trimmed with a narrow margin around the plate-mark and backed with a support sheet.

Size: (sheet) 6.6 x 10.1 cm

Inscribed on plate: (lower left corner) “THOBIE . 2 . CAP [artist’s monogram, ‘P’ & ‘G’]”

Lifetime impression. State i (of i) (Note: TIB and Bartsch do not propose additional states, but Hollstein and Landau describe three states; compare BM’s no. E,4.253 [first state] with Rijksmuseum’s no. RP-P-OB-10,976 [second state] and BM’s no. 1850,0810.565 [third state].)

TIB 16(8).13(324) (Walter L Strauss & Robert A Koch [eds.] 1980, “The Illustrated Bartsch: Early German Masters”, vol.16, p. 90); Landau 1978 13 (David Landau 1978, “Catalogo completo dell' opera grafica di Georg Pencz”, Milan, p. 86); Hollstein 27 (F W H Hollstein 1954, “German engravings, etchings and woodcuts c.1400-1700”, Amsterdam); Bartsch VIII.324.14 (Adam Bartsch 1803, “Le Peintre graveur”, 21 vols, Vienna).

The Rijksmuseum offers the following description of this print:

(transl.) “Tobit and Tobias buried the body of a man who was strangled on behalf of the Assyrian king. Tobit is mocked by two men about the lack of his fear of being caught. According to the biblical text, Tobias is not present at this event and this scene takes place at night but that is not apparent … [in this engraving] (Tobit 2: 7-8).”

(http://hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.31386)

See also the description at the British Museum: (https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=1519475&partId=1&searchText=Pencz+Tobit&page=1)

Condition: crisp and well-printed impression, trimmed with a narrow margin around the plate mark. There is a replenished nick in the narrow margin on the lower right side otherwise the sheet is in excellent condition (i.e. there are no tears, significant holes—there is a pin hole on the elbow of shrouded body—folds, abrasions, stains or foxing). The sheet has been laid onto a support sheet of archival (millennium quality) washi paper.

I am selling this very small and exquisite masterpiece of engraving by Pencz—one of the famous German Little Masters—for AU$405 (currently US$294.52/EUR256.32/GBP224.44 at the time of this listing). Postage for this print is extra and will be the actual/true cost of shipping.

If you are interested in purchasing this precious and exceptionally rare print, please contact me (oz_jim@printsandprinciples.com) and I will send you a PayPal invoice to make the payment easy.

This print has been sold