DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49256#0160
4
GERMAN SCÏÏOOL.
delicacy of his perception, could not lielp entertaining gloomy forebodings. Ile tliouglit of the
young girl promised him in marriage, as one of tliose sinister propliecies, which the Pythoness of
old was wont to clothe in brilliant language. Bnt lie submitted to what lie considered his
destiny.
The newly-married couple lived happily together for a short period. Soon, however, clouds
began to gather. Durer, whose character was mild and gentle, had not the détermination to
commence a strife with the charming, though. formidable, Agnes Frey. The disconsolate artist
sought comfort and advice from a near friend, in whom he ever found a ready sympathiser in his
sorrows. Being married himself, Willibald Pirckheimer was the better fitted to be his counsellor,
though his domestic life formed a strange contrast to that of Albert Durer. His partner was
a model of grâce and gentleness ; no discord had ever disturbed their harmony. But he was
destine d to hâve his share in the troubles of this world; his wife died, and her loss was a mutual
grief to the two friends. The artist, deeply impressed with the memory of Cresccntia, painted
her stretched on her death-bed, holding in her failing hands a lighted taper and a crucifix, and
receiving extreme unction from a priest seated at the bed-side, while a kneeling Augustine friar
reads the prayers for the dying. This painting was executed with pious care. At the side of
the weeping Willibald are seen the nuns of St. Clair, who are corne to sootlie the last hours of his
wife. At the top of the canvass Durer wrote, in letters of gold, words dictated to him by his
friend.
In the meantime Agnes Frey, tormented by avarice, restless, haughty, and violent, allowed
no repose to the husband she had tamed, to the melancholy painter of Melancholy. She urged
him to work, even threatened him, and at last locked him in his studio. He wrote sorrowfully
to his faithful friend, Willibald Pirckheimer: “ I hear that you hâve taken to yourself a wife,
take care that she prove not also a master.” Once he managed to get beyond the reach of this
Xantippe, by making a second visit to the city of lagoons, the home of Italian art, beautiful
Venice. He was induced to make this journey, by the pleasant réminiscences of his former sojourn
there. This was in the year 1506. The wonderful engravings of Albert Durer were already
beginning to astonish the lovers of the fine arts in Italy ; his renown had crossed the Alps and
reached the ears of Raphaël. These two great masters having discovered that their admiration
was reciprocal, exchanged portraits, Durer sending with his some of his fine engravings. The
fanions engraver, Marc Antonio, of Bologna, was at that time in Venice. He observed in these
engravings what was wanting in his own. He remarked the admirable guidance of the graver,
the exactitude and delicacy of the figures, and the great précision with which the copper was eut.
Admiring also the free and bold style of Durer’s wood-engravings, he attempted to imitate it.
By degrees he was led on by his success to counterfeit thirty-seven pièces of The Passion, and
to make them complote, placed upon them, instead of his own mark, the monogram of Albert
Durer. Vasari relates that Durer, warned of this fraud by the receipt of some of the proofs,
hastened to Venice, brought an action against Marc Antonio, and obtained an order from the
magistrales forbidding the Bolognese engraver to use, for the future, the cypher of Albert
Durer. This anecdote has been contradicted, and has been pronounced by Bartsch to be one of
those fictions, so frequently met with in the books of art of the period. The reason he gives for
his opinion is, that the pièces of The Passion are dated 1509 and 1512, and that, consequently,
they could not hâve appeared for several years after Durer’s visit to Venice in 1506. It would
be necessary, lie justly observes, to prove that Albert Durer made another journey to Venice,
but of this we hâve no account. This argument is forcible, and, we may say, conclusive, when
we remember the numerous inaccuracies of which Vasari has been found guilty. From the
confidential letters which Albert Durer wrote to his friend Willibald Pirckheimer from Venice,
81
GERMAN SCÏÏOOL.
delicacy of his perception, could not lielp entertaining gloomy forebodings. Ile tliouglit of the
young girl promised him in marriage, as one of tliose sinister propliecies, which the Pythoness of
old was wont to clothe in brilliant language. Bnt lie submitted to what lie considered his
destiny.
The newly-married couple lived happily together for a short period. Soon, however, clouds
began to gather. Durer, whose character was mild and gentle, had not the détermination to
commence a strife with the charming, though. formidable, Agnes Frey. The disconsolate artist
sought comfort and advice from a near friend, in whom he ever found a ready sympathiser in his
sorrows. Being married himself, Willibald Pirckheimer was the better fitted to be his counsellor,
though his domestic life formed a strange contrast to that of Albert Durer. His partner was
a model of grâce and gentleness ; no discord had ever disturbed their harmony. But he was
destine d to hâve his share in the troubles of this world; his wife died, and her loss was a mutual
grief to the two friends. The artist, deeply impressed with the memory of Cresccntia, painted
her stretched on her death-bed, holding in her failing hands a lighted taper and a crucifix, and
receiving extreme unction from a priest seated at the bed-side, while a kneeling Augustine friar
reads the prayers for the dying. This painting was executed with pious care. At the side of
the weeping Willibald are seen the nuns of St. Clair, who are corne to sootlie the last hours of his
wife. At the top of the canvass Durer wrote, in letters of gold, words dictated to him by his
friend.
In the meantime Agnes Frey, tormented by avarice, restless, haughty, and violent, allowed
no repose to the husband she had tamed, to the melancholy painter of Melancholy. She urged
him to work, even threatened him, and at last locked him in his studio. He wrote sorrowfully
to his faithful friend, Willibald Pirckheimer: “ I hear that you hâve taken to yourself a wife,
take care that she prove not also a master.” Once he managed to get beyond the reach of this
Xantippe, by making a second visit to the city of lagoons, the home of Italian art, beautiful
Venice. He was induced to make this journey, by the pleasant réminiscences of his former sojourn
there. This was in the year 1506. The wonderful engravings of Albert Durer were already
beginning to astonish the lovers of the fine arts in Italy ; his renown had crossed the Alps and
reached the ears of Raphaël. These two great masters having discovered that their admiration
was reciprocal, exchanged portraits, Durer sending with his some of his fine engravings. The
fanions engraver, Marc Antonio, of Bologna, was at that time in Venice. He observed in these
engravings what was wanting in his own. He remarked the admirable guidance of the graver,
the exactitude and delicacy of the figures, and the great précision with which the copper was eut.
Admiring also the free and bold style of Durer’s wood-engravings, he attempted to imitate it.
By degrees he was led on by his success to counterfeit thirty-seven pièces of The Passion, and
to make them complote, placed upon them, instead of his own mark, the monogram of Albert
Durer. Vasari relates that Durer, warned of this fraud by the receipt of some of the proofs,
hastened to Venice, brought an action against Marc Antonio, and obtained an order from the
magistrales forbidding the Bolognese engraver to use, for the future, the cypher of Albert
Durer. This anecdote has been contradicted, and has been pronounced by Bartsch to be one of
those fictions, so frequently met with in the books of art of the period. The reason he gives for
his opinion is, that the pièces of The Passion are dated 1509 and 1512, and that, consequently,
they could not hâve appeared for several years after Durer’s visit to Venice in 1506. It would
be necessary, lie justly observes, to prove that Albert Durer made another journey to Venice,
but of this we hâve no account. This argument is forcible, and, we may say, conclusive, when
we remember the numerous inaccuracies of which Vasari has been found guilty. From the
confidential letters which Albert Durer wrote to his friend Willibald Pirckheimer from Venice,
81