item details
Overview
Albrecht Altdorfer (c. 1480 –1538), was a German painter, engraver and architect of the Renaissance working in Regensburg. Along with Lucas Cranach the Elder and Wolf Huber he is regarded as the main representative of the so-called Danube School, setting biblical and historical subjects against landscape backgrounds of expressive colours. As an artist also making small, intricate engravings, as here, he is seen to belong to the Nuremberg Little Masters.
In this tiny print, Altdorfer depicts a lavishly armoured knight, with his helmet visor closed so we can only guess his facial appearance. The helmet is decorated with plumes. He holds an ornate ewer and a loaf of bread in each hand. In the Christian Holy Communion service, wine symbolises the blood of Christ and bread symbolises his body. Interestingly, Altdorfer owned a number of vineyards, such was his success as a Regensburg artist.
The knight is often known as Melchizedek, who is mentioned thus in the Biblical book of Genesis, Chapter 14: 'And Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine: and he was the priest of the most high God. And he blessed him, and said, "Blessed be Abraham to the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth, And blessed be the most high God, which hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand"'. Melchizedek's roles as a king, an eternal high priest and knight are deliberately conflated in this print. The knight's armour is likely to relate to Abraham's victory against the Elamite King Chedorlaomer. Melchizedek is a highly exalted, messiah like figure; his name means 'king of righteousness' in ancient Hebrew. But very little more is said in the Bible about him; this surely gave Altdorfer license to depict him in this splendid but mysterious way.
See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albrecht_Altdorfer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melchizedek
Dr Mark Stocker Curator, Historical International Art January 2017