Die Antwerpener Kathedrale von Süden

The artist of this sheet effectively directs the viewer’s

gaze across an empty square to a wall as high

as a house, and through an open gate, to the south

view of a mighty Gothic church. With a cruciform

floor plan, the cross section of a basilica, an apse

stabilized by flying buttresses, and a twin-towered

façade, the edifice includes all the essential features

of a magnificent cathedral. As the inscription

indicates, this is a depiction of the Church of Our

Lady (Onze Lieve Vrouwekerk; cathedral since 1559)

in the city center of Antwerp. Based on French

models, its construction began in 1352 and was

completed almost two hundred years later with

the erection of the wooden crossing tower. With

the exception of a tiny figure in the churchyard,

the scene is deserted. The slight drop shadows

indicate an afternoon scene. The artist’s concern is

the documentation of the grandiose architectural

project and its imminent completion. At the north

tower, we can see that the scaffolding for its further

construction has just been erected.

The drawing entered the collection of Duke

Albert von Sachsen-Teschen (1738–1822) as a work

by Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528), not least because of

the inscription ascribed to the artist, although this

attribution was not retained beyond authors of the

late nineteenth century.1 In the spirit of compromise,

it was assumed that the work was something

that Dürer had either acquired or received as a gift.

According to this assumption, he had added the

inscription in 1514 and included it within his own

workshop stock. Moreover, the fact that he climbed

the tower of the church in 1521 attests to Dürer’s

interest in the boldest architectural undertaking of

the late Middle Ages. He himself noted with amazement

that the tower “is supposedly higher than

the one in Strasbourg.”2 (In fact, the tower of the

Strasbourg Minster is nineteen meters higher.) The

drawing was first excluded from Dürer’s oeuvre by

Thausing in his 1876 monograph on the artist.3 He

was later followed by Benesch in his 1928 catalogue

of Netherlandish drawings in the Albertina’s collection.

Both authors classified the drawing as the work

of an anonymous Netherlandish artist. The notable

weaknesses in perspectival projection suggest the

hand of a dilettante.

The Netherlandish watermark, which can be

dated to the first decade of the sixteenth century,

supports an on-site rendering of the architecture.

The stage of construction dates the drawing’s

execution to 1507–8, since the crossing tower and

the south façade of the transept are still interim,

and work on the filigree spire of the north tower has

just begun.4 Thus, there would be no discrepancy

between this dating and the inscription, which is

dated 1514.

As noted above, the inscription has been

understood as an annotation by Dürer. However,

comparison with similar annotations certified as

autograph reveals the deficiencies in the writer’s

attempt to imitate Dürer’s handwriting: he utterly

failed to achieve the characteristically precise,

flowing style of the Nuremberg master. In addition,

there are elements such as the ones formed as an i

in the dating, of which this author knows no equivalents

from Dürer’s hand; the same with the spelling

αnttorff (Antwerp), which deviates completely from

the artist’s practice.5 The most revealing detail is

anachronistic: the writer’s use of the word zu (for

the English in)—a spelling unknown to Dürer and

indeed to his century; one would expect zw or zu˚.

What we see here is modern orthography, in use

since the eighteenth century. In other words, the inscription

is a fake. It was most likely added around

1800 with the aim of transforming the drawing into

a Dürer relic. As such, it bespeaks the importance

accorded to Dürer’s sojourn in Antwerp in 1520–21

as well as to the art of the Flemish Late Gothic.

 

1. Heller 1827, 2.1:104, no. 37.

2. Ashcroft 2017, 1:575.

3. Thausing 1876, 417.

4. In this regard, see the detailed study by Evers 1974.

5. Three inscriptions on drawings by Dürer in the Albertina

Museum, Vienna, have the following spellings: The Harbor

of Antwerp by the Scheldt, 1520, pen and ink, on paper, 21.3 x

28.7 cm, 3165 (Antorff); The Imperial Captain Felix Hungersperg,

1520, pen and ink, on paper, 16 x 10.5 cm, 3162 (antorff); Portrait

of a Ninety-Three-Year-Old Man, 1521, pen and black and gray

inks, white opaque watercolor, on gray-violet prepared paper,

41.5 x 28.2 cm, 3167 (antorff).

 

Emily J. Peters, Laura M. Ritter (Hg.), AK Tales of the City. Drawing in the Netherlands from Bosch to Bruegel, Cleveland Museum of Art 9.10.2022 - 8.1.2023, New Haven 2022, Kat. Nr.6