The Circumcision of Christ from the cycle The Life of the Virgin

According to Vasari, Raimondi became familiar with the works by Albrecht Dürer in Venice between 1506 and 1508 when he began copying them. He undoubtedly had encountered the transalpine prints earlier, but probably started to study the German master more thoroughly in the Italian city. His copies after Dürer total more than seventy. The Annunciation was created from a print from Dürer’s cycle The Circumcision of Christ but, contrary to the 1503 woodcut original, Raimondi executed it in the medium of copper engraving. He engraved seventeen works after the cycle. The reason behind that was certainly not only financial: the engraver admired the German artist and copying him helped him master his artistic method. However, he would sell these copies as Dürer’s own, even providing them with his monogram „AD“. Dürer, enraged by the situation, brought a legal action against Raimondi at the Signoria, and the authority consequently banned him from using Dürer’s signature. They, nevertheless, did not protest against him imitating the works and selling the copies, since it was a part of a commonplace practice.