DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.52444#0043
INTRODUCTION.
long before the process was employed by painters and engravers for the
production of printable plates. He adds, on the authority of unnamed
connoisseurs, that no armor decorated with etching is known which can
be dated before 1520. In view of this state of things, it will be well to
give, as concisely as possible, the leading dates and facts involved. They
are as follows:
Recipes for etching on iron are found in manuscripts of the fifteenth
century. (Harzen.)
A number of short swords, with etched ornamentation, still preserved
at Bologna, must have been made between 1488 and 1506. (Harzen.)
The sword of Caesar Borgia, known as “ the Queen of Swords,” with
rich etched ornamentation, the work of Hercules de’ Fideli, was made
between 1494 and 1498. (Yriarte.)
A sword in the Historical Museum at Dresden, also richly etched, and
bearing the device of Barbara Gonzaga, who married Count Eberhard
“ im Bart” of Wiirtemberg in the year 1474, is with great probability
attributed to about that period by Mr. Max von Ehrenthal, the director
of the museum in question.
The same museum owns also parts of a beautifully etched suit of
armor, which Mr. von Ehrenthal is inclined to attribute to Hercules de’
Fideli, and which, judging from the style of the figure compositions on
it, must certainly be of Italian origin and of about the end of the fifteenth
century.
Harzen has shown conclusively, although by circumstantial evidence,
that the Hopfers, of Augsburg, produced printing-plates etched on iron,
at least as early as the beginning of the sixteenth century, if not earlier.
The earliest dated etching so far known, of the year 1513, “A Girl
Washing her Foot,” is by Urs Graf. A reproduction of this etching has
lately been made at the Government Printing Office in Berlin.
Diirer’s earliest dated etchings are of the year 1515, two years later
than Graf’s plate.
In justice to Thausing, however, it must be stated, that he could
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long before the process was employed by painters and engravers for the
production of printable plates. He adds, on the authority of unnamed
connoisseurs, that no armor decorated with etching is known which can
be dated before 1520. In view of this state of things, it will be well to
give, as concisely as possible, the leading dates and facts involved. They
are as follows:
Recipes for etching on iron are found in manuscripts of the fifteenth
century. (Harzen.)
A number of short swords, with etched ornamentation, still preserved
at Bologna, must have been made between 1488 and 1506. (Harzen.)
The sword of Caesar Borgia, known as “ the Queen of Swords,” with
rich etched ornamentation, the work of Hercules de’ Fideli, was made
between 1494 and 1498. (Yriarte.)
A sword in the Historical Museum at Dresden, also richly etched, and
bearing the device of Barbara Gonzaga, who married Count Eberhard
“ im Bart” of Wiirtemberg in the year 1474, is with great probability
attributed to about that period by Mr. Max von Ehrenthal, the director
of the museum in question.
The same museum owns also parts of a beautifully etched suit of
armor, which Mr. von Ehrenthal is inclined to attribute to Hercules de’
Fideli, and which, judging from the style of the figure compositions on
it, must certainly be of Italian origin and of about the end of the fifteenth
century.
Harzen has shown conclusively, although by circumstantial evidence,
that the Hopfers, of Augsburg, produced printing-plates etched on iron,
at least as early as the beginning of the sixteenth century, if not earlier.
The earliest dated etching so far known, of the year 1513, “A Girl
Washing her Foot,” is by Urs Graf. A reproduction of this etching has
lately been made at the Government Printing Office in Berlin.
Diirer’s earliest dated etchings are of the year 1515, two years later
than Graf’s plate.
In justice to Thausing, however, it must be stated, that he could
4
XXV