Hans Burgkmair, known as the Elder (Augsburg, 1473 – Augsburg, 1531)
The Fools' Cart, original woodcut from the work "Triumph of Maximilian I"
cm 350 x 380
Splendid proof in a sixteenth-century printing, printed on laid paper with a heraldic coat of arms watermark in a circle.
Burgkmair was commissioned to design and create around 67 plates for the Triumph of Maximilian I around 1512.
A monumental work composed of 137 woodcuts, measuring a total of 54 meters in its entirety.
A first printed edition of the 137 blocks of the Procession, with a print run of 200 copies, was published in 1526 by order of Maximilian's nephew, Archduke Ferdinand. A second edition of 135 blocks was printed in 1777, with further editions published by Adam Bartsch, and then in 1883-1887 by Franz Schestag.
The absence of numbering, added in eighteenth-century copies, certifies the sixteenth-century dating of this precious sheet which is difficult to find.
