Dodgson, Campbell: Catalogue of early German and Flemish woodcuts: preserved in the Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum (Band 1): [German and Flemish woodcuts of the XV century] (London, 1903)

Preface.

viii

under that of books tlian of that of prints (or in other words; to
belong to bibliography ratlier than to iconography) ; ancl accordingly
the main Museum collection of them is preserved in the Department of
Printed Books, wliile the Department of Prints and Drawings contains
only the few fragmentary specimens here noticed.

The principles of arrangement adopted in the present catalogue
are for various reasons not entirely uniform or simple, and need some
words of explanation. The whole of the primitive xv century prints
catalogued in Part I are arranged in order of subject, for tlie reasons
that, being almost without exception anonymous, they cannot be
assigned to individual masters, and that further the majority of
tliem, being without certain evidences either of date or place of
origin, cannot be accurately grouped on principles either chronolo-
gical or geographical.1 In Part II, on the other hand, dealing with
the work of known and often famous artistic personalities in the
xvi century, the several masters are grouped in schools, and the
woodcuts designed by each are separately described, for tlie most
part in chronological order. This is a departure from the principle
adopted in the “Peintre-Graveur ” of Bartsch and nearly all subsequent
books of reference, wliether general or special; in which the works of
each artist are habitually grouped in order not of time but of subject.
But for the full understanding of any artist’s talent it is necessary
that his works should be studied, if possible, in the actual order and
secpience of their production; and the customary arrangement by
subject often brings pieces from the beginning and end of a career
confusingly togetlier, separating those wliich naturally belong next
each other. Diirer, the most important master treated in tliis volume,
has in many instances carefully dated his prints, and in others
external evidences enable us witli certainty to do so for ourselves ;
so that with liim a elironological order becomes no less easy than
desirable. In the case of artists the dates and sequence of whose
work cannot be ascertained witli sufficient approach to accuracy, the

1 Since the following pages passed the press. the accepted opinion that the yast
majority of these prints are G-erman has been hotly contested by M. Henri Bouchot,
Director of the Department of Prints in the National Library, Paris; who in his book
“ Les deux cents incuuables xylographiques du departement des estampes ” (Paris, 1903),
claims Burguudy as the oradle and centre of the craft. It is too late to take the
arguments of M. Bouchot into account in the present work, but it may perhaps be
foreseen that among impartial students they will iind a very qualified acceptance.