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)

472 Early German and Flemish Woodcuts.—PaH II.

including a Carthusian monk, some of them in becl or propped with
pillows, others leaning on sticks. They have scrolls attachecl to them
with inscriptions referring to the common malady, genvfraga, hec vnica
CALAMITAS NOSTRA, LECTIGRADA, MALEFICA, CURSI VETANS, BOCZ ELLENTZ
WILLEN, TALORVM TORTRIX, CRUCIFIGE CRUCIFIGE. Single border.

[Each 145 x 118 (slightly cut on one side).] Good impressions.

Purchased from Herr Gutekunst, 1874.

No. 126 is printed on the recto, no. 127 on the verso, of the first leaf (before the title-
page) of “ Ludus de Podagra . . . e vulgari Germanico in Latinum carmen coacta, per
H. Eobanum Hessum,” printed by Ivo Scliotfer, Mentz, 1537, 4to (F. W. E. Eoth, “ Die
Mainzer Buclrdruckerfamilie Schoffer,” Leipzig, 1892, p. 196, no. 41). The same cuts
occur in the original German work, published in the same year, of which this is a
translatiun ; copies at Munich and in tlie Klemm collectiou at Leipzig.

The author of the original German poem was Jodocus Hessus, “ Carthusianse
Sodalitatis apud Erphurdiam princeps.” The two designs complete one another. Gout,
victorious over Jupiter, Neptune and Pluto, is arraigned before a judge by her human
victims, who call her by various names, while their general complaint is summed up
in the words, “ Haec unica calamitas nostra.” In the end she is acknowledged to be a
victorious goddess, and implored to leave the poet and student in peace, and to betake
herself to the luxuiious and idle rich.

Dr. Pauli, before lie knew the circumstances under which the allegory was
puhlished, called it a certain work of Beham’s most mature period.

128. TIIE EOUNTAIN OF YOUTH.

(Imperfect.) B. 165. E. 272. A. 262. S. 280. Pauli 1120.

The whole composition is cut onfour blocks, ancl measures 375 X 1090
xnm. This collection contains only the first and third sheets.

(1.) To r. is seen the walled edge of a pool of water, fed by the
Tountain of Youth, to which the aged are walking with crutches, or being
carried by porters, across a stretch of open country with a village church
and a well by the high road 1. In the open space three men and a
woman, restored to youth, are dancing round a bonfire made of
crutches.

(3.) The pool into which the fountain flows is partly roofed over. In
this third sheet we see part of a stately bathing-house of Renaissance
architecture, open in front, and sheltering the extremity of the pool and
a small fountain. Two women (copied from Marcantonio’s Judgment of
Paris, B. 245) stand by the fountain. Another woman and a man are in
the water ; others sit on the brink or lean against the columns. A wide
seat runs along the further sicle of the hall. Rear the first window
a man is being shaved; a bather lies asleep under the second window;
under the third a man and a woman are playing at backgammon. On
the roof of the building five bathers sit drinking at a table, and a woman
piays a hurcly-gurdy.

[Size of sheet (1) 367 X 270, (2) 365 x 265.] Eatber late impressious, witli the
lower border line much brokeu. Watermark ou both, Augsburg arms ou a shield with
the letter A below.

(1) lu .the iuventory of 1837 ; (2) purchased from Messrs. Smith, 1850.

f DBATII AND TIIE COUETESAN. 1522. Pauli 1122 i.

(Eeproduction.)

Facsimile by the Reichsdruckerei, Berlin, of the only known impression
(in the Berlin Cabinet) of the first state of the original woodcut, with the