ALBRECHT DÜRER 1471–1528
Four naked women - The four witches, 1497

Engraving on laid paper with watermark of a bear (Meder watermark 92)
Image size: 19,2 x 13,6 cm; paper size: 20 x 14,5 cm
In very good condition, with borderline, platemark and small margins.

PROVENANCE
Private collection, Switzerland;
Beurret Bailly Widmer, Basel, 11 March 2026, lot 3

Catalogue raisonné
Meder, 69 probably c/d (of h); Schoch, Mende, Scherbaum 17

The engraving of four naked women and its thematization of lust and transience is one of Albrecht Dürer’s most enigmatic works. Who are these women? Ordinary Nuremberg women in a bath house, witches, whores or goddesses? Are they allegories of the four seasons or the four temperaments? The countless interpretations in art history are as varied as they are unconvincing. The devil and the flames on the left support the traditional reading of the women as witches. A nearly contemporary copy by Nicoletto da Modena, however, identifies the subject as the “Judgement of Paris.” But why do a skull and bone lie on the floor? Why do the women stand on different levels of the room? What are they doing with their largely concealed hands? And what is the meaning of the mysterious ball hanging from the ceiling with the as yet undeciphered inscription OGH? The mysterious ball also bears the date 1497. Thus this fascinating copperplate is the first dated graphic work by Albrecht Dürer.
Whatever the subject may be, artistically the depiction of female nudes in art north of the Alps was revolutionary. Perhaps Dürer was simply seeking a pretext of an allegorical, mythological or literary nature in order to devote himself to the real subject, the depiction of the naked female body.