Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528 )The Dream of the Doctor. About 1498. Burin. 118 x 185. Bartsch 76; Meder 70 a/f. Exceptional and brilliant proof on thin laid paper with a very apparent ox-head watermark (Meder 62), trimmed to the square line, but with the double fillet clearly visible at the foot. Ex-coll. E. G. Kennedy (Lugt 857) and unidentified mark (Lugt 1493b, also seen on a print by Dürer). The nude temptress is inspired by the Italian canons of the female body and the stove is a symbol of rejuvenation: the apple of temptation is seen gently warming in it. The pillow symbolizes laziness, the "Devil's pillow". In The Ship of Fools by Sebastian Brant, for which Dürer produced illustrations, it is thus a question of an idler who sleeps day and night and loves nothing so much as his stove, "hibernating in his house like a mouse", unaware that the devil is about to tempt him.