In 1513, Albrecht Dürer made Knight, Death and the Devil; centuries later, an English boy rescued a print from a dump, and it sold for £22,680 at auction

A 500-year-old engraving by German Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer was rescued from being thrown away at a rubbish tip in Kent and was sold for £22,680 in September 2024, according to the BBC. The artwork, titled The Knight, Death and the Devil, was put up for auction with an initial estimate ranging from £10,000 to £20,000. Mat Winter, who was an avid visitor to the local tip for antiques since he was 10, found the artwork among the belongings a woman was preparing to throw away. After it caught his attention, he asked the woman if he could keep it, and she agreed. Along with his other finds, Winter had stored the artwork for about 13 years until he sought an appraisal in 2024, at 24.The discovery came as a surprise to auction house director Jim Spencer, since Dürer’s prints have been copied over the centuries, which caused him to suspect the item might be a later reproduction. However, after examining it, he concluded that the paper and the precision of the engraving pointed to an early impression made from Dürer’s original copper plate.A faint mark helped establish its authenticitySpencer, along with his brother and colleague Matty, took the artwork to the British Museum, where it was compared with other variations stored in the museum’s collection. They were helped by a research fellow to examine engravings closely, and used a magnifying glass to contrast individual lines and details.The examination found one feature that stood out: a barely visible cross on the head of the knight’s horse, accidentally made on the copper plate before the print was produced. Because the mark remained absent from later printing after the plate was corrected, its very presence supported the conclusion that the print belonged to an early impression rather than a later copy.Another key detail, Jim Spencer said, was the laid texture of the paper, which was consistent with the period, while the engraving’s fine detail and contrast were unusually well preserved. The artwork had been pasted onto a mount, which directly affected its value; had it been without mounting, it would’ve commanded a price close to £200,000 as reported by Rare Book Auctions. However, it should be noted that this was a comparison with a better-preserved example, not the expected or achieved price for Winter’s print.One of three celebrated master engravingsThe artwork Knight, Death and the Devil was completed in 1513 and is considered one of the three works commonly grouped as Dürer’s Meisterstiche or master engravings. The other two works are called Saint Jerome in His Study and Melencolia I, both of which were made in 1514. The three prints personify the different themes of moral virtue, active life, theological contemplation, and intellectual life.One interpretation claims it represents the Christian knight persevering despite the presence of death and evil. Dürer, who lived from 1471 to 1528, worked as a painter and printmaker and spearheaded the Northern Renaissance as a leading figure. Renowned for the technical quality of woodcuts and copper-plate engravings, his work was instrumental in bridging the gap between the Italian Renaissance and Northern European art. Winter’s print was sold through Rare Book Auctions’ inaugural sale, which ran online and ended on 18 September 2024. The buyer was reported to be a private collector in Germany, meaning the engraving went back to the country where Dürer was born.You use AI every day. Now get your AI Quotient. Take the AIQ test.