Page "Albrecht Dürer" Paragraph 16

His famous series of sixteen great designs for the Apocalypse is dated 1498, as is his engraving of St. Michael Fighting the Dragon.

He made the first seven scenes of the Great Passion in the same year, and a little later, a series of eleven on the Holy Family and saints.

The Seven Sorrows Polyptych, commissioned by Frederick III of Saxony in 1496, was executed by Dürer and his assistants c. 1500.

Around 1503 – 1505 he produced the first seventeen of a set illustrating the Life of the Virgin, which he did not finish for some years.

Neither these, nor the Great Passion, were published as sets until several years later, but prints were sold individually in considerable numbers.