Auction introduction: Our live auction on 24 January 2023 marks the return of our Old Master and 19th Century Prints sales to New York and offers a large and diverse selection of works which shaped the history of Western printmaking. The sale features many rare and important prints from European and North-American collections, tracing the evolution of the printed image over a period of centuries, from early German engravings of the 15th century to French lithographs of the 19th century, from Martin Schongauer to Odilon Redon. The core of the sale consists of numerous masterpieces by the three unrivalled masters: Albrecht Dürer, Rembrandt and Francisco de Goya. Among Dürer’s works, his eternally intriguing Melencolia and a group of early woodcuts stand out. Rembrandt’s bravura, sensitivity and deep humanity is apparent in a variety of fine impressions of religious and secular subjects, culminating in The Three Crosses (fourth state), one of the most radical and dramatic printed images in the history of art. Goya’s boundless creativity and dark imagination can be experienced in three celebrated sets of prints, all in first editions: Los Caprichos, Los Desastres de la Guerra and Los Proverbios – the last two from the collection of Joseph William Drexel (1833–1888), the New York banker, philanthropist and bibliophile, and an early trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.