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Ex libris Willibald Pirckheimer

Wikimedia Commons · CC0 1.0 · Hover to magnify, click for fullscreen

Original file
PrintCC0 1.0

Ex libris Willibald Pirckheimer

Albrecht Dürer

paper
height 149 mm x width 119 mm
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

About This Work

The print features the dual coats of arms of Pirckheimer and his wife, Felicitas Rieter, supported by two large winged putti. The left shield displays a birch tree (a pun on the name Pirckheimer), while the right depicts a crowned siren with two tails, all surmounted by a crested helmet and decorative garlands. At the bottom, smaller winged figures engage in a playful mock battle below an inscription of the owner's name.

Willibald Pirckheimer was a central figure in Northern Humanism and a close associate of Dürer, serving as a key conduit for Neoplatonic and Hermetic ideas from Italy to Germany. This bookplate marked a library that housed essential esoteric and classical texts, including Pirckheimer's own Latin translation of Horapollo's Hieroglyphica.

puttisirenbirch treebucraniumheraldic shield46A12248C5125FF4131A2511

Inscriptions(Latin)

SIBI ET AMICS.P.
LIBER BILIBALDI PIRCKHEIMER

Translation

FOR HIMSELF AND HIS FRIENDS.
THE BOOK OF WILLIBALD PIRCKHEIMER.

Connected Texts

Willibald Pirckheimer

The owner of the bookplate was a scholar who translated Neoplatonic texts and Horapollo's Hieroglyphica.

Horapollo

Pirckheimer translated the Hieroglyphica, a key text for Renaissance symbology, which Dürer also illustrated.

Provenance & Source

Object

Holding Institution

Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Medium

paper

Dimensions

height 149 mm x width 119 mm

GenreAI

emblem

Digital Source

Source

Rijksmuseum · CC0 1.0

Original Resolution

3212 × 4096 px

Harvested

March 24, 2026

Linked Data

AI AI-cataloged fields generated by gemini-3-flash-preview on April 1, 2026. Getty identifiers are AI-inferred and may require verification.

View full resolution (3212 × 4096)

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