DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.7598#0172
b'38
MARTIN SCHONGAUER.
[chap. viii.
MARTIN SCHONGAUER.
Nat. 1453 * Ob. 1499.
Those of my readers, whose opinions as to the early history of
chalcography in Germany have been formed upon the assurances of
Heinecken, Strutt, and other writers of the eighteenth century, will,
it is probable, be not a little startled at the above dates,—so much at
variance with those which they have hitherto been accustomed to
see given, to mark the periods of the birth and death of the great
artist of whom we now treat; and it may reasonably be expected,
that I should put them in possession of the evidence upon which
such a deviation from hitherto received chronology is founded.
This I shall endeavour to do with as much brevity as possible.
The common belief, that Martin Schongauer died at Colmar in
the year 1486, (for it is now ascertained that his family name was
not Schon, but Schongauer), appears to owe its origin to a passage
in the works of Christopher Scheurl, a German author of the 16th
century, who, after observing that the assertion of Jacob Wimphe-
ling, that Albert Durer had been the scholar of Martin, was un-
founded, writes as follows:
" Albert, to whom I communicated this statement (of Wimphe-
" ling) wrote me word, and he has often since repeated the same in
" conversation, that his father (whose birth-place was Cula, near
" Voradium, a city in Hungary) had indeed destined him, when
" only thirteen years old, to be the disciple of Martin Schon, be-
" cause of that master's great celebrity; and that he had even
" applied to him by letter upon the subject: but that Schon died
" about that time; in consequence of which himself had studied
" for three years in the school of Michel Wolgemuth, the neigh-
* The grounds upon which I have ven- year 1453, will be found in the text,
tured to date the birth of Schongauer in the
MARTIN SCHONGAUER.
[chap. viii.
MARTIN SCHONGAUER.
Nat. 1453 * Ob. 1499.
Those of my readers, whose opinions as to the early history of
chalcography in Germany have been formed upon the assurances of
Heinecken, Strutt, and other writers of the eighteenth century, will,
it is probable, be not a little startled at the above dates,—so much at
variance with those which they have hitherto been accustomed to
see given, to mark the periods of the birth and death of the great
artist of whom we now treat; and it may reasonably be expected,
that I should put them in possession of the evidence upon which
such a deviation from hitherto received chronology is founded.
This I shall endeavour to do with as much brevity as possible.
The common belief, that Martin Schongauer died at Colmar in
the year 1486, (for it is now ascertained that his family name was
not Schon, but Schongauer), appears to owe its origin to a passage
in the works of Christopher Scheurl, a German author of the 16th
century, who, after observing that the assertion of Jacob Wimphe-
ling, that Albert Durer had been the scholar of Martin, was un-
founded, writes as follows:
" Albert, to whom I communicated this statement (of Wimphe-
" ling) wrote me word, and he has often since repeated the same in
" conversation, that his father (whose birth-place was Cula, near
" Voradium, a city in Hungary) had indeed destined him, when
" only thirteen years old, to be the disciple of Martin Schon, be-
" cause of that master's great celebrity; and that he had even
" applied to him by letter upon the subject: but that Schon died
" about that time; in consequence of which himself had studied
" for three years in the school of Michel Wolgemuth, the neigh-
* The grounds upon which I have ven- year 1453, will be found in the text,
tured to date the birth of Schongauer in the