DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.28460#0149
Division A.—Single Woodcuts.
127
opinion that tlie woodcuts were copied froru the engravings (“ Peintre-Graveur,” ii, 9. 30)-
Willshire himself (Catalogue ii, 143) rightly treats the engravings as copies, though he
regards the date 1464 as an addition made by the engraver. But Dr. Max Lehrs
(op. cit.) has done away with the ciaims of the Master of the Banderoles tobe an original
artist at all, proving him to he a mere compiler, when he is not a direct copyist, of the
works of others. This very alphabet, which obtained for him the name, current for
many years, of the Master of 1464, is a case of direct copying, and is artistically very
inferior to the prototype on wood. The date 1464 belongs to the woodcuts, not to the
engravings, which merely repeated it. All critics have abandoned the belief that 1464
was the year in which the engraver worked, and the name originally proposed by
Duchesne (“ Voyage d’un Iconopbile,” 1834, p. 188), Le Maitre aux Banderoles,has now
been adopted again for want of a better.
Now I may pass to the comparison of the two alphabets on wood, with regard to
which the true facts are not even yet generallyrecognised. The alphabet in the British
Museum, though known to English connoisseurs since 1819, was not described in a
published work till 1839, when John Jackson published his Treatise on wood-engraving,
where the alphabet is described on pp. 131-139. (Ottlev’s “Inquiry concerning the
Invention of Printing,” where the alphabet is described on p. 199, with a facsimile of the
letters G I K L more satisfactory than any other reproductions of this alphabet that
have yet appeared, except the L in “ Linton’s Masters of Wood-engraving,” 1889, was
written before 1836, but not pirblished till 1863). All the commendations justly given
by the early critics—-Douce, Ottley, Chatto—to these woodcuts, as well as the allusions
by Falkenstein and Leon de Laborde in 1840 (quoted by Lehrs, p. 8), refer to the
English set, the only one then known.
In 1848 Prof. Hassler of Ulm discovered another and more complete woodcut
alphabet among the Italian prints in the Public Museum at Basle. This was assumed
without investigation to be a second and more perfect example of the alphabet already
known, and from that date till 1892 the same error was repeated by one writer after
another—Passavant (Deutsclies Kunstblatt, 1850, p. 172. “ Peintre-Graveur,” 1860, i,
118), Willshire (Catalogue, 1879, vol. i, p. 209), Dutuit(“Manuel,” 1884, i, p. 266), Lehrs
(■op. cit., p. 8). All the critics wrote as if only one version of this alphabet on wood
existed, the English writers, as a rule, ignoring the Basle alphabet (e.g. Sotheby, “ Princ.
Typ.” 1858, i, pp. 122-4; Linton, op. cit., 18S9, p. 61; but also Nagler, “Monogrammisten,”
1860, ii, p. 658), while the continental writers, finding the Basle alphabet more
accessible, as well as more complete, no longer took the trouble to examine the London
alphabet at first hand. Renouvier alone, who had seen both, suspected that they were
different, but distrusted his own opinion, owing to the lapse of time between liis study
of the two alphabets, and was inclined to make light of the difference, if it existed.1
He possessed the measurements of the Basle copy, but had only measured the English
letters after the reproductions in Jackson’s treatise. His preference for the Basle copy
would hardly have been maintained if he had had the opportunity afforded by modern
photographic facsimiles of comparing it directly with the ot.her version. Holtrop
(“Monuments typographiques des Pays-Bas au quinzieme siecle,” 1868, p. 12), repeats
the remarks of Renouvier, without speaking from personal knowledge.
The prevailing error is especially unfortunate in such a valuable piece of criticism
as the comparison of the xylographic with the engraved alphabet by Dr. Lelirs. The
latter wrote throughout from knowledge of the Basle alphabet only, and chose three
letters from that alphabet to confute the believers in the originality of the Master of the
Banderoles. What he said on tliis point, is, of course, quite true, but it would have been
even more true had he said it of the London alphabet. By giving, for the first time, a
few facsimiles of the Basle woodcuts, he was unwittingly providing the means of
disproving their identity with their London rival—an identity which he himself took for
granted. (I am speaking, of course, of a publication of the year 1886. Professor Lehrs
at the present time, 1901, takes the same view as myself about the relationship and
respective merits of the various alphabets.)
At last, in 1892, Schreiber published the express statement that the Basle alphabet
1 “ J’ai signale quelques differences entre les deux exemplaires; la dimension n’est
pas non plus parfaitement egale; enfin l’execution m’a paru encore plus fine et plus
distinguee dans l’exemplaire de Bale que dans celui de Londres. Mais a la distance
l’un de l’autre ou je les ai vus, je ne puis cependant affirmer que ces clifferences
constituent deux ^ditions se'pare'es. Quoiqu’il en soit, le style et la composition sont
les memes; ils sortent du meme atelier; ils forment l’un des plus beaux titres de la
gravure xylographique'et de l’ancienne ecole flamande.” (“ Histoire de l’Origine et des
Progres de la Gravure,” Bruxelles, 1860, p. 107.)
127
opinion that tlie woodcuts were copied froru the engravings (“ Peintre-Graveur,” ii, 9. 30)-
Willshire himself (Catalogue ii, 143) rightly treats the engravings as copies, though he
regards the date 1464 as an addition made by the engraver. But Dr. Max Lehrs
(op. cit.) has done away with the ciaims of the Master of the Banderoles tobe an original
artist at all, proving him to he a mere compiler, when he is not a direct copyist, of the
works of others. This very alphabet, which obtained for him the name, current for
many years, of the Master of 1464, is a case of direct copying, and is artistically very
inferior to the prototype on wood. The date 1464 belongs to the woodcuts, not to the
engravings, which merely repeated it. All critics have abandoned the belief that 1464
was the year in which the engraver worked, and the name originally proposed by
Duchesne (“ Voyage d’un Iconopbile,” 1834, p. 188), Le Maitre aux Banderoles,has now
been adopted again for want of a better.
Now I may pass to the comparison of the two alphabets on wood, with regard to
which the true facts are not even yet generallyrecognised. The alphabet in the British
Museum, though known to English connoisseurs since 1819, was not described in a
published work till 1839, when John Jackson published his Treatise on wood-engraving,
where the alphabet is described on pp. 131-139. (Ottlev’s “Inquiry concerning the
Invention of Printing,” where the alphabet is described on p. 199, with a facsimile of the
letters G I K L more satisfactory than any other reproductions of this alphabet that
have yet appeared, except the L in “ Linton’s Masters of Wood-engraving,” 1889, was
written before 1836, but not pirblished till 1863). All the commendations justly given
by the early critics—-Douce, Ottley, Chatto—to these woodcuts, as well as the allusions
by Falkenstein and Leon de Laborde in 1840 (quoted by Lehrs, p. 8), refer to the
English set, the only one then known.
In 1848 Prof. Hassler of Ulm discovered another and more complete woodcut
alphabet among the Italian prints in the Public Museum at Basle. This was assumed
without investigation to be a second and more perfect example of the alphabet already
known, and from that date till 1892 the same error was repeated by one writer after
another—Passavant (Deutsclies Kunstblatt, 1850, p. 172. “ Peintre-Graveur,” 1860, i,
118), Willshire (Catalogue, 1879, vol. i, p. 209), Dutuit(“Manuel,” 1884, i, p. 266), Lehrs
(■op. cit., p. 8). All the critics wrote as if only one version of this alphabet on wood
existed, the English writers, as a rule, ignoring the Basle alphabet (e.g. Sotheby, “ Princ.
Typ.” 1858, i, pp. 122-4; Linton, op. cit., 18S9, p. 61; but also Nagler, “Monogrammisten,”
1860, ii, p. 658), while the continental writers, finding the Basle alphabet more
accessible, as well as more complete, no longer took the trouble to examine the London
alphabet at first hand. Renouvier alone, who had seen both, suspected that they were
different, but distrusted his own opinion, owing to the lapse of time between liis study
of the two alphabets, and was inclined to make light of the difference, if it existed.1
He possessed the measurements of the Basle copy, but had only measured the English
letters after the reproductions in Jackson’s treatise. His preference for the Basle copy
would hardly have been maintained if he had had the opportunity afforded by modern
photographic facsimiles of comparing it directly with the ot.her version. Holtrop
(“Monuments typographiques des Pays-Bas au quinzieme siecle,” 1868, p. 12), repeats
the remarks of Renouvier, without speaking from personal knowledge.
The prevailing error is especially unfortunate in such a valuable piece of criticism
as the comparison of the xylographic with the engraved alphabet by Dr. Lelirs. The
latter wrote throughout from knowledge of the Basle alphabet only, and chose three
letters from that alphabet to confute the believers in the originality of the Master of the
Banderoles. What he said on tliis point, is, of course, quite true, but it would have been
even more true had he said it of the London alphabet. By giving, for the first time, a
few facsimiles of the Basle woodcuts, he was unwittingly providing the means of
disproving their identity with their London rival—an identity which he himself took for
granted. (I am speaking, of course, of a publication of the year 1886. Professor Lehrs
at the present time, 1901, takes the same view as myself about the relationship and
respective merits of the various alphabets.)
At last, in 1892, Schreiber published the express statement that the Basle alphabet
1 “ J’ai signale quelques differences entre les deux exemplaires; la dimension n’est
pas non plus parfaitement egale; enfin l’execution m’a paru encore plus fine et plus
distinguee dans l’exemplaire de Bale que dans celui de Londres. Mais a la distance
l’un de l’autre ou je les ai vus, je ne puis cependant affirmer que ces clifferences
constituent deux ^ditions se'pare'es. Quoiqu’il en soit, le style et la composition sont
les memes; ils sortent du meme atelier; ils forment l’un des plus beaux titres de la
gravure xylographique'et de l’ancienne ecole flamande.” (“ Histoire de l’Origine et des
Progres de la Gravure,” Bruxelles, 1860, p. 107.)