DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.28460#0174
Division A.—Single Woodcuts.
149
xv and during a great part of tlie xvi century. The fin&l development of this
imitation of coloured drawings, in which Mair had no part, was the invention of
chiaroscuro woodcuts, in which the effect of the coloured ground was produced by a
separate tone-block with white spaces cut out to give the lights.
The name of Mair of Landshut as a wood-engraver does not occur in any history of
the art later than v. Murr’s history of art at Nuremberg, Section “ Formschneider-
kunst,” (Journal zur Kunstgeschichte, 1776, ii, 148). “ Mair, ein anderer Form-
schneider, verfertigte auch noch im xv Jahrhunderte dergleichen helldunkle
Blatter,” i.e. chiaroscuros like Wechtlin’s. Among his many blunders, v. Murr
stumbled here upon, at least, a half-truth. The three woodcuts in this collection were
unknown to Bartsch and Passavant, and are of extreme rarity; two, indeed, are
unique, while of the third only one other impression is known.1 They were described
in the Durazzo catalogue (second part, 1873, lots 15-17) as “ Metallschnitte,” and
Willshire (“ Descriptive Catalogue,” vol. ii, 1883, pp. 374, 378, 381) regards them as
impressions from “ soft metal plates engraved in relief, after the manner of wood-
engraving.” His opinion is not disputed by Mr. Lionel Cust (“ Index of Artists,” vol. i,
1893, p. 260). The so-called “ metal cuts,” however, as we have already seen, can be
iesolved in almost every case into either line-engravings or woodcuts pure and simple, and
when there is nothing in a print which cannot be explained as the product of a wood-block,
it is needless to suppose that the artist resorted to the technique of relief-cutting on
metal, which was very unusual except in the case of the dotted prints and their more
artistic successors, the illustration3 to the French livres d’heures, and of some decorative
pieces of unusual delicacy like the title-borders engraved by the Master I.F. of Basle
ahout 1520. In this case it appears to me that all three prints are easily explained as
woodcuts, and that their peculiarities lie not so much in the cutting as in the design.
In two of the prints the use of large spaces of black is remarkable, and in all three, but
especially in the first, cross-hatching is used to an extent hardly to be matched in the
xv century (compare, however, the Man of Sorrows, after Israhel van Meckenem,
Schr. 989). In the second cut, which may be the earliest of the three, the artist has
not taken the trouble to draw this cross-hatching correctly, and the tangle of irregular
meshes which results has a very unpleasant effect. The three compositions are fully
■described by Willshire.
143. GHRIST AMONGr THE DOCTORS IN THE TEMPLE.
W. 6.
Signed Mair, and dated 1499 (in reverse).
[276 X 172.] Fine early impression, paper stained light green.
Purchased at the Durazzo sale, 1873. One other impression is known, in tbe
Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, It is on blueish green paper, heightened with white. See
Fiissli, “ Kunstler-Lexicon,” i, p. 388 (where it is described as a chiaroscuro woodcut),
and Renouvier, “ Des types et des Mauieres” (xve siecle), p. 84. It was overlooked by
Passavant. Zani, “ Enciclopedia” ii, vol. 6, p. 110, mentions this impression, then in
the Durazzo collection at Genoa.
144. TIIE SCOURGING OF CHRIST.
Signed Mair, but not dated.
[271 X 188.] Fine early impression. Paper stained light green.
Purchased at the Durazzo sale, 1873. No other impression is known.
W. 7.
145. ST. BARBARA.
Signed Mair, and dated 1499.
[221 x 139.] Good impressiou, not coloured.
Purchased at the Durazzo sale, 1873. No other impression is known.
W. 9.
1 A 143 and 145 may perhaps be the “ zwey audere alte Holzschnitte mit 1499
'bezeichnet,” which are classed with a woodcut of Ghrist with the instruments of the
Passion, by Ulrich Gamperlein (i. e. Urs. Graf), as lot 36 of Bolzmann’s Sale-
■catalogue, Regensburg, 1786 (note communicated by Prof. Max Lehrs).
149
xv and during a great part of tlie xvi century. The fin&l development of this
imitation of coloured drawings, in which Mair had no part, was the invention of
chiaroscuro woodcuts, in which the effect of the coloured ground was produced by a
separate tone-block with white spaces cut out to give the lights.
The name of Mair of Landshut as a wood-engraver does not occur in any history of
the art later than v. Murr’s history of art at Nuremberg, Section “ Formschneider-
kunst,” (Journal zur Kunstgeschichte, 1776, ii, 148). “ Mair, ein anderer Form-
schneider, verfertigte auch noch im xv Jahrhunderte dergleichen helldunkle
Blatter,” i.e. chiaroscuros like Wechtlin’s. Among his many blunders, v. Murr
stumbled here upon, at least, a half-truth. The three woodcuts in this collection were
unknown to Bartsch and Passavant, and are of extreme rarity; two, indeed, are
unique, while of the third only one other impression is known.1 They were described
in the Durazzo catalogue (second part, 1873, lots 15-17) as “ Metallschnitte,” and
Willshire (“ Descriptive Catalogue,” vol. ii, 1883, pp. 374, 378, 381) regards them as
impressions from “ soft metal plates engraved in relief, after the manner of wood-
engraving.” His opinion is not disputed by Mr. Lionel Cust (“ Index of Artists,” vol. i,
1893, p. 260). The so-called “ metal cuts,” however, as we have already seen, can be
iesolved in almost every case into either line-engravings or woodcuts pure and simple, and
when there is nothing in a print which cannot be explained as the product of a wood-block,
it is needless to suppose that the artist resorted to the technique of relief-cutting on
metal, which was very unusual except in the case of the dotted prints and their more
artistic successors, the illustration3 to the French livres d’heures, and of some decorative
pieces of unusual delicacy like the title-borders engraved by the Master I.F. of Basle
ahout 1520. In this case it appears to me that all three prints are easily explained as
woodcuts, and that their peculiarities lie not so much in the cutting as in the design.
In two of the prints the use of large spaces of black is remarkable, and in all three, but
especially in the first, cross-hatching is used to an extent hardly to be matched in the
xv century (compare, however, the Man of Sorrows, after Israhel van Meckenem,
Schr. 989). In the second cut, which may be the earliest of the three, the artist has
not taken the trouble to draw this cross-hatching correctly, and the tangle of irregular
meshes which results has a very unpleasant effect. The three compositions are fully
■described by Willshire.
143. GHRIST AMONGr THE DOCTORS IN THE TEMPLE.
W. 6.
Signed Mair, and dated 1499 (in reverse).
[276 X 172.] Fine early impression, paper stained light green.
Purchased at the Durazzo sale, 1873. One other impression is known, in tbe
Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, It is on blueish green paper, heightened with white. See
Fiissli, “ Kunstler-Lexicon,” i, p. 388 (where it is described as a chiaroscuro woodcut),
and Renouvier, “ Des types et des Mauieres” (xve siecle), p. 84. It was overlooked by
Passavant. Zani, “ Enciclopedia” ii, vol. 6, p. 110, mentions this impression, then in
the Durazzo collection at Genoa.
144. TIIE SCOURGING OF CHRIST.
Signed Mair, but not dated.
[271 X 188.] Fine early impression. Paper stained light green.
Purchased at the Durazzo sale, 1873. No other impression is known.
W. 7.
145. ST. BARBARA.
Signed Mair, and dated 1499.
[221 x 139.] Good impressiou, not coloured.
Purchased at the Durazzo sale, 1873. No other impression is known.
W. 9.
1 A 143 and 145 may perhaps be the “ zwey audere alte Holzschnitte mit 1499
'bezeichnet,” which are classed with a woodcut of Ghrist with the instruments of the
Passion, by Ulrich Gamperlein (i. e. Urs. Graf), as lot 36 of Bolzmann’s Sale-
■catalogue, Regensburg, 1786 (note communicated by Prof. Max Lehrs).