Literature:      Meder 13 (Lateinische Textasusgabe) (before a/f);

                      Schoch/Mende/Scherbaum, vol. II. 154.

Fine impression from a series of twelve woodcuts printed by Hieronymus Höltzel in Nuremberg in 1511. 

Dürer made seven of the twelve woodcuts of his Large Passion series between 1497 and 1500, and then produced four additional woodcuts, the ‘Last Supper’, the ‘Arrest of Christ’, the ‘Descent into Limbo’ and the ‘Resurrection’ much later in 1510. In the following year, he published the series in book form with Latin verses composed by Benedict Schwalbe and a title-page design, ‘Christ as the Man of Sorrows’, at the same time as a second edition of the Apocalypse and the first edition of his Life of the Virgin series. There are a number of references to these three works, “die grossen Bücher” in Dürer ‘s diary of his journey to the Netherlands in 1520–21 which indicate that he often, but not always disposed of them together. On one occasion, he exchanged the three for a publication by Martin Luther.

The complete book is open at the title-page for the Large Passion. Dürer sold impressions of these prints separately for many years before the book edition and such early impressions, which are distinguished by having no text on the verso.