Leonhard Beck’s woodcut, “St. Eadmundus I”, 1510/18

Leonhard Beck (1475/80–1542)

“St. Eadmundus I” (aka “Sanctus. Radmundus”; “Edmund of Anglia”; “St Eadmund, King of East Anglia”; “St Edmund the Martyr”), 1510/18, plate 29 from the series of 87 woodcuts, “Saints connected with the House of Habsburg”, plate cut by Wolfgang Resch (fl.c.1508–1537) and published in “Saints Connected with the House of Hapsburg: A General Account of the Ancestry of Emperor Maximilian I”.

For those who may be unfamiliar with St. Eadmundus I, the British Museum offers the following biographical details: “King of East Anglia and Christian martyr. Believed to have been crowned in 855. Defeated by the Danes led by Ubbe Ragnarsson and Ivar the Boneless, he was executed after, it is said, having refused to renounce Christ. Canonized during the 10th century” (https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/term/BIOG169551).

This impression is from the later edition printed by Anna Alberti (fl.1794-1802) and published by Franz Xaver Stöckl (1763–1815) in Vienna in 1799 using the original woodblocks (see http://diglib.hab.de?grafik=xd-2f-100-00028 and http://www.virtuelles-kupferstichkabinett.de/ —search using the name “Stöckl”).

Woodcut on laid paper with full wide margins and stitch binding holes on left as published.

Size: (sheet) 41.5 x 29.4 cm; (image borderline) 23.8 x 20.8 cm.

Numbered above the image borderline: (right) “29”.

New Hollstein (Leonhard Beck) 25 (Guido Messling [comp.] 2007, “The New Hollstein: Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts 1450–1700: Leonhard Beck”, Part I, Ouderkerk aan den Ijssel, Sound and Vision, p. 9, cat. no. 25).

The British Museum offers the following description of this print:

“St Radmundus (Edmund of Anglia?); standing outside a church, holding a sceptre in his left hand and giving money to a beggar with his right; on the church a coat-of-arms; in a volume with modern binding containing 87 woodcuts from the series of Habsburg saints, from the first edition without text. 1518 Woodcut” (https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1865-0610-324).

Condition: a richly inked and superbly printed impression with generously wide margins in excellent condition with no tears, holes (beyond the stitch binding holes on the left edge), creases, abrasions, significant stains or foxing.

I am selling this large and superb woodcut, printed from the original 1510 plate for the Franz Xaver Stöckl 1799 edition, for the total cost of AU$263 (currently US$201.64/EUR166.40/GBP142.85 at the time of this listing) including postage and handling to anywhere in the world, but not (of course) any import duties/taxes imposed by some countries.

If you are interested in purchasing this startlingly fine woodcut showing the saintly King of East Anglia giving alms to a beggar, please contact me (oz_jim@printsandprinciples.com) and I will send you a PayPal invoice to make the payment easy.

This print has been sold