DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.28460#0148
126
Early German and Flemish Woodcuts.—Part I.
the letter Z is placed in the middle under X Y, no noiice heing taken of the ornament.
The dranghtsman, followed by the woodcutter, has made no attempt to rc-produce the
perspectrve frame, but has merely surrounded each letter with a border of two lines
4 mm. apart. The woodcut copies are printed on a paper of which the watermark is a
shield, bearing a post-horn surmounted by a crown, with the letters W E (Wilhelmus
Bex?) beneath the sliield. John Bagford, a shoemaker with literary tastes, and a rage
for collecting, who died in 1716 at the age of 66, issued in 1707 proposals for a history
of printing, which never carne to anything. It is probable that these woodcut copies
of tlie “ antique A B ” were destined, together with the numerous copies on wood of
leaves of block-books and of old watermarks which are to be found in the same volume,
to serve as illustrations to the projected magnum opus. Bagford probabty considered the
concluding ornament an unnecessary addition to the alphabet and omitted it intention-
ally. The wood-block from which two of the letters of his copy were printed is in the
Print-room (in the inventory of 1837, origin not stated, probably part of the Bagford
collection).
The sole interest of these late copies lies in the evidence which they give as to the
existence, about 1700, of the letters which are now lost. Especially important is the
indirect evidence that the letter A was dated 1464. The date must have been indis-
tinct, or else the draughtsman was too uneducated to understand it, for he read the
first part of the date (MCCCC) as the word “ mine,” and gave up the second part as a
puzzle, writing it “ h’nii.” The woodcutter thought he could make a better job of it,
and produced, probably without having the originai before him, an inscription which
reads “ thine mixi.” He probably intended to make it “ thine mine,” which sounds neat
and epigrammatic, but had scruples before he got to the end, and let his second word
run off into mere strokes. Tliis piece of involuntary evidence as to the original reading
disposes of Schreiber’s assumption that the A in this alphabet was “ probablement sans
la date.” 1 There is no doubt that the copyist had our alphabet (or a duplicate of it)
before him, and not the Basle alphabet. The reasons for this belief will be more
appropriately given below, in discussing the relations between these two. He certainly
had not the engraved copies before him, for wherever the engraved copy differs from
the original, especially in the shading and folds of the drapery, the English woodcuts
will be found to agree with the original.
It remains now to compare this alphabet with tlie other woodcut alphabet at Basle,
and with the engraved alphabet by the “ Master of the Banderoles,” in the light of the
new material which has been published since Willshire’s Catalogue appeared in 1879.
This new material is contained in the following pxxblications: 1. Max Lehrs, “ Der
Meister mit den Bandrollen,” Dresden, 1886, pp. 6-10, with a very complete summary
of t.he previously existing literature on the subject, and facsimiles, pl. 7-12, of three of
the Basle woodcuts, A K P, and three of the engravings. 2. Tlie Chalcograpliical
Society’s publication for 1890, with a facsimile (no. 12) of a complete set in the
Pinacoteca, Bologna, of the alphabet engraved by the Master of the Banderoles. 3.
W. L. Schreiber, “ Manuel de l’Amateur,” tome ii; Berlin, 1892, pp. 324-327, descrip-
tion of the two woodcut alphabets in the British Museum and the Basle Museum as
distinct, nos. 1998-9. 4. L. Kaemmerer, “ Ein spatgotisches Figurenalplxabet im Berliner
Kupferstichkabinet,” Jahrbuch der K. preuss. Kunstsammlungen, xviii. Heft 4,
Berlin, 1897 (primarily an account of an alphabet of about 1400, in pen and ink on
vellum, Lut the article contains also a review of other grotesque alphabets both earlier
and later). 5. The C'haleographical Society’s publication for 1897, “ Gothic Alpha-bets,”
with text by Jaro Springer, pp. 3-4, and a complete facsimile, pl. xiii.-xvi, of the
Basle alphabet, in which tlietwo sheets of the original are divided into four.2
I will take first the question of priox-ity betxveen the designer of the woodcuts and
the engraver of the alphabet on copper. When Willshire wrote, this question might
still be treated as an open one, tlxough such authorities as Doxxce, Eenouvier, Xagler,
and Galichon lxad borne witness to the artistic sxxperiority, at least, of the woodcuts to
the engravings, and Passavant was tlxe only critic wlxo lxad committed himself to the
1 Herr Schreiber subsequently retracted this statement. Centralbl. f. JBiblotheks-
wesen, 1895, xii, 216. “Leider ist in dem einzigen uns erhaltenen Exemplar der
Buchstabc A, welcher jedenfalls mit der Jahrzahl versehen gewesen sein wird, zerrissen.”
2 To thislist should nowbeadded: Max Lehrs, “Ueber gothische Alphabete,” Repert.
f. Kunstwissenschaft, 1899, xxii, 371, a review, embodying much additional information,
of no. 5, with a supplement (pp. 376-8) devoted to a review of the present essay on the
Grotesque Alplxabet, which was published separately for the Trustees of the Britisli
Museum in 1899, with a coliotype facsimile of the entire alphabet.
Early German and Flemish Woodcuts.—Part I.
the letter Z is placed in the middle under X Y, no noiice heing taken of the ornament.
The dranghtsman, followed by the woodcutter, has made no attempt to rc-produce the
perspectrve frame, but has merely surrounded each letter with a border of two lines
4 mm. apart. The woodcut copies are printed on a paper of which the watermark is a
shield, bearing a post-horn surmounted by a crown, with the letters W E (Wilhelmus
Bex?) beneath the sliield. John Bagford, a shoemaker with literary tastes, and a rage
for collecting, who died in 1716 at the age of 66, issued in 1707 proposals for a history
of printing, which never carne to anything. It is probable that these woodcut copies
of tlie “ antique A B ” were destined, together with the numerous copies on wood of
leaves of block-books and of old watermarks which are to be found in the same volume,
to serve as illustrations to the projected magnum opus. Bagford probabty considered the
concluding ornament an unnecessary addition to the alphabet and omitted it intention-
ally. The wood-block from which two of the letters of his copy were printed is in the
Print-room (in the inventory of 1837, origin not stated, probably part of the Bagford
collection).
The sole interest of these late copies lies in the evidence which they give as to the
existence, about 1700, of the letters which are now lost. Especially important is the
indirect evidence that the letter A was dated 1464. The date must have been indis-
tinct, or else the draughtsman was too uneducated to understand it, for he read the
first part of the date (MCCCC) as the word “ mine,” and gave up the second part as a
puzzle, writing it “ h’nii.” The woodcutter thought he could make a better job of it,
and produced, probably without having the originai before him, an inscription which
reads “ thine mixi.” He probably intended to make it “ thine mine,” which sounds neat
and epigrammatic, but had scruples before he got to the end, and let his second word
run off into mere strokes. Tliis piece of involuntary evidence as to the original reading
disposes of Schreiber’s assumption that the A in this alphabet was “ probablement sans
la date.” 1 There is no doubt that the copyist had our alphabet (or a duplicate of it)
before him, and not the Basle alphabet. The reasons for this belief will be more
appropriately given below, in discussing the relations between these two. He certainly
had not the engraved copies before him, for wherever the engraved copy differs from
the original, especially in the shading and folds of the drapery, the English woodcuts
will be found to agree with the original.
It remains now to compare this alphabet with tlie other woodcut alphabet at Basle,
and with the engraved alphabet by the “ Master of the Banderoles,” in the light of the
new material which has been published since Willshire’s Catalogue appeared in 1879.
This new material is contained in the following pxxblications: 1. Max Lehrs, “ Der
Meister mit den Bandrollen,” Dresden, 1886, pp. 6-10, with a very complete summary
of t.he previously existing literature on the subject, and facsimiles, pl. 7-12, of three of
the Basle woodcuts, A K P, and three of the engravings. 2. Tlie Chalcograpliical
Society’s publication for 1890, with a facsimile (no. 12) of a complete set in the
Pinacoteca, Bologna, of the alphabet engraved by the Master of the Banderoles. 3.
W. L. Schreiber, “ Manuel de l’Amateur,” tome ii; Berlin, 1892, pp. 324-327, descrip-
tion of the two woodcut alphabets in the British Museum and the Basle Museum as
distinct, nos. 1998-9. 4. L. Kaemmerer, “ Ein spatgotisches Figurenalplxabet im Berliner
Kupferstichkabinet,” Jahrbuch der K. preuss. Kunstsammlungen, xviii. Heft 4,
Berlin, 1897 (primarily an account of an alphabet of about 1400, in pen and ink on
vellum, Lut the article contains also a review of other grotesque alphabets both earlier
and later). 5. The C'haleographical Society’s publication for 1897, “ Gothic Alpha-bets,”
with text by Jaro Springer, pp. 3-4, and a complete facsimile, pl. xiii.-xvi, of the
Basle alphabet, in which tlietwo sheets of the original are divided into four.2
I will take first the question of priox-ity betxveen the designer of the woodcuts and
the engraver of the alphabet on copper. When Willshire wrote, this question might
still be treated as an open one, tlxough such authorities as Doxxce, Eenouvier, Xagler,
and Galichon lxad borne witness to the artistic sxxperiority, at least, of the woodcuts to
the engravings, and Passavant was tlxe only critic wlxo lxad committed himself to the
1 Herr Schreiber subsequently retracted this statement. Centralbl. f. JBiblotheks-
wesen, 1895, xii, 216. “Leider ist in dem einzigen uns erhaltenen Exemplar der
Buchstabc A, welcher jedenfalls mit der Jahrzahl versehen gewesen sein wird, zerrissen.”
2 To thislist should nowbeadded: Max Lehrs, “Ueber gothische Alphabete,” Repert.
f. Kunstwissenschaft, 1899, xxii, 371, a review, embodying much additional information,
of no. 5, with a supplement (pp. 376-8) devoted to a review of the present essay on the
Grotesque Alplxabet, which was published separately for the Trustees of the Britisli
Museum in 1899, with a coliotype facsimile of the entire alphabet.