Emperor Maximilian I giving audience to an ambassador.

Contemp. hand-coloured woodcut, 35 x 56 cm, on 2 pasted sheets of laid paper, unsigned (large obtrusive horizontal folding crease at lower part with loss of paper, some scratches at upper right with sm. loss of paper, old restoration on verso, some dirt stains).

Under passe-partout.

Very rare woodcut depicting the Imperial court of Maximilian I at Innsbruck, who is receiving a foreign ambassador pledging a request. The Habsburg emperor is seated on his throne under a baldachin, and is holding the regalia (scepter and globe) of the Holy Roman Empire. Behind the kneeling man a large group of figures is entering through a antique ornamented doorway. They may represent the Electors or the Imperial Diet of the Holy Roman Empire. A ridge with a chained monkey allows the viewer a look at a landscape with an army of German pikemen or "Landsknechte" crossing a bridge and entering through the city gates. The style, manner of cutting, and composition of the woodcut come close to the major woodcut projects made by Hans Burgkmair (1473-1531) and Erhard Schön (1491-1542) for Maximilian between 1508 and 1519. The sheet most likely intended as a broadsheet, as traces at the upper and lower margin betray traces of letters. Another copy of the woodcut is now in the collection of the British Museum (1878,0713.4158).