Three standard-bearers on horseback.

Woodcut, 40 x 44,5 cm, laid paper with 18th-c. watermark, unsigned (sm. brown stains, paper thinned).

Under passe-partout.

Three men holding the flag standards of Antwerp, Leuven and Mechelen, as part of the dominions of the Holy Roman Empire. A woodcut from "Maximilian's Triumphal Procession", a huge project initiated by Emperor Maximilian I in an unseen campaign of self-promotion and imperial propaganda. The entire series consisted of a total of 139 woodcuts and was the most ambitious project ever undertaken in early modern printmaking. The artists involved included Albrecht Dürer, Hans Springinklee, Hans Schäufelein and Hans Burgkmair. When the Emperor died in 1519, the project came to a halt and remained incomplete. The series was eventually published in 1526, by order of Archduke Ferdinand. Based on the paper and watermark, this is a later reprint of 1777 or 1796 (by Adam von Bartsch), issued from the original woodblock preserved in the Albertina library, Vienna.
Ref. German Hollstein (Burgkmair) 552-618. - L. Silver, "Marketing Maximilian: The Visual Ideology of a Holy Roman Emperor", Princeton, 2008, pp. 103-111.