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Overview
Born in the city of Leiden, Lucas van Leyden was the first Dutch engraver to achieve wide acclaim in his lifetime. He made about 200 prints, mostly engravings, but also woodcuts and a few etchings. He met Albrecht Dürer in 1521 during the German artist's year-long visit to the Netherland, and Dürer drew van Leyden's portraits and bought a set of his prints. It is likely that Lucas simultanously acquired some of Dürer's prints, as his influence is evident in Lucas's work in the early 1520s.
This print, the fifth in a series of 14, dates from much earlier. Lucas was a child prodigy artist, and this impressive series, made when he was just 16, shows no signs of immaturity. In 1845, the pioneering Anglo-Irish art historian and iconographer Anna Jameson described it as 'magnificent in point of feeling'. Each figure is depicted isolated against a plain background and with his attributes. Unlike most of the other apostles, St John is depicted as a young man. His chalice possibly alludes to the Last Supper, or a line in St John's Gospel where Christ promises James and John that they will both 'drink his cup'. The snake in the chalice comes from an old legend when St John was given a cup of wine which had been poisoned. Following his gesture of benediction, clearly rendered in the engraving, the poison came out of it in the form of a snake and John drank the cup unharmed.
See: David Maskill, 'Lucas van Leyden 1494-1533 Netherlands', in William McAloon (ed.), Art at Te Papa (Wellington, 2009), p. 26.
Dr Mark Stocker Curator, Historical International Art January 2017