DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.28460#0271
240 Early German and Flemish Woodauts.—Part I.
SCHOOL OF NUREMBERG. XV CENTURY.
MICHEL WOLGEMUT.
Painter and draughtsman: son of Yalentine and Anna Wolgemnt;
b. at Nuremberg, 1434; probably travelled on the Rhine and in the
Netherlands; became a citizen of Nuremberg and married Barbara,
widow of the painter Hans Pleydenwurff, 1473 ; presided over a large
painter’s workshop, in which his stepson, Wilhelm Pleydenwurff, was
an assistant and Diirer (1486-9) a pupil ; extant documents bear
witness to commissions received by him for paintings in the years
1479, 1487, 1490, 1501 and 1508 ; d. 30 Nov. 1519. His portrait,
painted by Diirer in 1516, is at Munich, the drawing in the Albertina,
Yienna. He married, late in life, a second wife, Christina, who
survived till 1550.
Wolgemut probably designed the frontispiece to the “Gesetze
der Newe Reformacion der Stat Nureberg,” A. Koberger, 1484, fol.
(Hain 13716 ; Muther 421 ; Proctor 2039), representing the arms of
the Empire and of Nuremberg between SS. Sebald and Laurence,
who stand on pedestals under a Gothic arch [255 x 175] (Y. v. Loga,
Jahrbuch, ix, 104). A fine woodcut of the Assumption of the Yirgin
on a broadside dated 1492, in the Munich print-cabinet, is also
ascribed to him witli great probability, but his chief works as a
designer of woodcuts are to be found in the Schatzbehalter (1491)
and the Nuremberg Chronicle (1493), to be described below. These
are the two first important books with original illustrations publislied
at Nuremberg, and with the exception of Breydenbach’s Sanctae
Peregrinationes, illustrated by Erhard Reuwich (Mentz, 1486), the
earliest books printed in Germany of which the woodcuts can be
assigned with certainty to a known draughtsman. It is evident that
several different wood engravers were employed in each book, and
that the artist’s designs sufiered greatly in their inexperienced hands.
The designs themselves are very unequal in merit, even in the
Schatzbehalter, vdiere the style is comparatively uniform ; in the
Chronicle, where the diversity is mucli greater, it is known that
Pleydenwurff was associated witli tlie master in preparing the
designs,1 while many of tlie cuts are so indifferent that they must
be regarded as the work of subordinate craftsmen or pupils. In both
books many designs have been borrowed from older engravings or
woodcuts; these cases will be noticed as they occur.
1 Messrs. Thode and Visclier, alone among the recent writers on the subject. ascribe
to him a share in tlie Schatzbehalter also.
SCHOOL OF NUREMBERG. XV CENTURY.
MICHEL WOLGEMUT.
Painter and draughtsman: son of Yalentine and Anna Wolgemnt;
b. at Nuremberg, 1434; probably travelled on the Rhine and in the
Netherlands; became a citizen of Nuremberg and married Barbara,
widow of the painter Hans Pleydenwurff, 1473 ; presided over a large
painter’s workshop, in which his stepson, Wilhelm Pleydenwurff, was
an assistant and Diirer (1486-9) a pupil ; extant documents bear
witness to commissions received by him for paintings in the years
1479, 1487, 1490, 1501 and 1508 ; d. 30 Nov. 1519. His portrait,
painted by Diirer in 1516, is at Munich, the drawing in the Albertina,
Yienna. He married, late in life, a second wife, Christina, who
survived till 1550.
Wolgemut probably designed the frontispiece to the “Gesetze
der Newe Reformacion der Stat Nureberg,” A. Koberger, 1484, fol.
(Hain 13716 ; Muther 421 ; Proctor 2039), representing the arms of
the Empire and of Nuremberg between SS. Sebald and Laurence,
who stand on pedestals under a Gothic arch [255 x 175] (Y. v. Loga,
Jahrbuch, ix, 104). A fine woodcut of the Assumption of the Yirgin
on a broadside dated 1492, in the Munich print-cabinet, is also
ascribed to him witli great probability, but his chief works as a
designer of woodcuts are to be found in the Schatzbehalter (1491)
and the Nuremberg Chronicle (1493), to be described below. These
are the two first important books with original illustrations publislied
at Nuremberg, and with the exception of Breydenbach’s Sanctae
Peregrinationes, illustrated by Erhard Reuwich (Mentz, 1486), the
earliest books printed in Germany of which the woodcuts can be
assigned with certainty to a known draughtsman. It is evident that
several different wood engravers were employed in each book, and
that the artist’s designs sufiered greatly in their inexperienced hands.
The designs themselves are very unequal in merit, even in the
Schatzbehalter, vdiere the style is comparatively uniform ; in the
Chronicle, where the diversity is mucli greater, it is known that
Pleydenwurff was associated witli tlie master in preparing the
designs,1 while many of tlie cuts are so indifferent that they must
be regarded as the work of subordinate craftsmen or pupils. In both
books many designs have been borrowed from older engravings or
woodcuts; these cases will be noticed as they occur.
1 Messrs. Thode and Visclier, alone among the recent writers on the subject. ascribe
to him a share in tlie Schatzbehalter also.