|
The first of Dürer's engravings bearing a monogram and the only one with this archaic version of it. The dragonfly has been variously identified as a grasshopper, a praying mantis and a butterfly. The composition is still primitive, although the severely foreshortened head of St Joseph - asleep and old to stress the notion of Mary's virginity - is in marked contrast to earlier still extant drawings by Dürer of this subject.
The sheet is a direct successor to Martin Schongauer's work.
| 
