DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.7598#0139
chap, viii.] GERMANY AND THE LOW COUNTRIES. 605
1466. This engraving, which is of a circular form, exhibits, in
a round space in the centre, St. John the Baptist, who is represented
as an old man, sitting with a book on his knee, and the lamb
beside him. This subject is surrounded by a border of arabesques,
in which the four doctors of the church, and the insignia of the four
evangelists, are introduced in small circles within the windings of
the ornamental foliage. This print measures about 7 inches and a
half in diameter, including the plain margin which surrounds it.
Of the two impressions of this engraving in the British Museum, the
Jirst which I shall mention was evidently taken off before the plate
had suffered by too much printing, and is most brilliant* and in
perfect preservation. The date upon it, on the reading-desk of
St. Jerome, is thus: ^A-d-d- But in the second impression,
which was as evidently taken off after the plate had been worn by
printing, and retouched in the dark parts with the graver, the date
appears thus: •)! . The first figure here remains the same
as in the first impression; but the artist who retouched the plate
appears to have introduced a figure representing a second 1, between
that figure and the 4,—and also to have converted the point, follow-
ing the fourth figure of the date in the original impression, into a 1,
which, as the reader will observe, is exactly of the same shape as
the last figure of the date in the print copied by Mr. Strutt. It is,
I acknowledge, not very easy to pronounce as to the motive of the
artist by whom these singular and useless alterations were made in
the date of this engraving, perhaps more than a century after the
period of its original publication; but it strikes me as not impossible
that he might have intended to convert the date into 1461, but left
his task incomplete.
The total absence of any engraving of the German or Flemish
school dated with the years 1462, 1463, or 1464,—whilst, at the
same time, we have so many by the artist whose works we are
describing, bearing the dates 1466 and 1467,—might perhaps be
admitted as, of itself, a sufficient objection to our considering the
date of 1461, upon the print copied by Strutt, as legitimate. To
1466. This engraving, which is of a circular form, exhibits, in
a round space in the centre, St. John the Baptist, who is represented
as an old man, sitting with a book on his knee, and the lamb
beside him. This subject is surrounded by a border of arabesques,
in which the four doctors of the church, and the insignia of the four
evangelists, are introduced in small circles within the windings of
the ornamental foliage. This print measures about 7 inches and a
half in diameter, including the plain margin which surrounds it.
Of the two impressions of this engraving in the British Museum, the
Jirst which I shall mention was evidently taken off before the plate
had suffered by too much printing, and is most brilliant* and in
perfect preservation. The date upon it, on the reading-desk of
St. Jerome, is thus: ^A-d-d- But in the second impression,
which was as evidently taken off after the plate had been worn by
printing, and retouched in the dark parts with the graver, the date
appears thus: •)! . The first figure here remains the same
as in the first impression; but the artist who retouched the plate
appears to have introduced a figure representing a second 1, between
that figure and the 4,—and also to have converted the point, follow-
ing the fourth figure of the date in the original impression, into a 1,
which, as the reader will observe, is exactly of the same shape as
the last figure of the date in the print copied by Mr. Strutt. It is,
I acknowledge, not very easy to pronounce as to the motive of the
artist by whom these singular and useless alterations were made in
the date of this engraving, perhaps more than a century after the
period of its original publication; but it strikes me as not impossible
that he might have intended to convert the date into 1461, but left
his task incomplete.
The total absence of any engraving of the German or Flemish
school dated with the years 1462, 1463, or 1464,—whilst, at the
same time, we have so many by the artist whose works we are
describing, bearing the dates 1466 and 1467,—might perhaps be
admitted as, of itself, a sufficient objection to our considering the
date of 1461, upon the print copied by Strutt, as legitimate. To