DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.74231#0766
736
The epitaph panels discussed here (two "Lamentations of Christ" and one "Na-
tivity of Christ") eloquently testify to both Dürer's involvement with the task he
was asked to perform as well as to his stylistic development. One key aim of the
investigation was to date the works as precisely as possible, and to trace their
sometimes complicated history of emergence. All available data was reviewed
and collated for this purpose. A separate section of the book is devoted to each
of the three major works (»Holzschuher« / »Glimm« / »Paumgartner«). Sub-
chapters address historical questions (donorship, intended place of installation,
acquisition history), art-historical aspects (description, artist's hand, dating, sub-
sequent influence, critique of copies, reception), and considerations of materials
(nineteenth- and twentieth-century restorations). In the case of the Holzschuher
epitaph in Nuremberg, a preliminary drawing of Dürer's is taken into account,
and in that of the Paumgartner epitaph, a relatively large-format drawing made
after the panel is considered.
In describing the panels, iconographical and compositional issues are ad-
dressed, and paintings that served Dürer as models are discussed following the
descriptions proper. As regards the issue of the artist's own hand, reference is
made to recent and earlier dactyloscopic investigations. In view of the grave in-
cident of 1988 (see below), questions of conservation are considered by way of
conclusion.
The patrons of the memorial panels discussed here were representatives of lead-
ing patrician families in Nuremberg and one of the city's respected goldsmiths.
From our present vantage point we may assume that the three panels not only
served obvious purposes of religious veneration in the Nuremberg churches in
which they were located but were also meant to perpetuate the memory of de-
ceased family members and thus to serve the personal devotions of the donors.
To reconstruct the circumstances surrounding the commissions, a thorough
study of all available sources regarding the families concerned was necessary in
each case (living circumstances, social standing, dates of death, places of burial).
In the case of the Holzschuher and Paumgartner works, clear indications were
found that these were commissioned in honor of both deceased parents by their
already adult children; in the case of the Glimm Lamentation it was the death of
his wife which occasioned the prosperous Nuremberg goldsmith to donate a de-
votional image of this kind to the Predigerkirche. The immediate reason for the
commissions to Albrecht Dürer was evidently the anniversary of a parent's or
wife's death. As regards the Holzschuher Lamentation, it became apparent that
the commission was given after the death of the donors' mother (just prior to
The epitaph panels discussed here (two "Lamentations of Christ" and one "Na-
tivity of Christ") eloquently testify to both Dürer's involvement with the task he
was asked to perform as well as to his stylistic development. One key aim of the
investigation was to date the works as precisely as possible, and to trace their
sometimes complicated history of emergence. All available data was reviewed
and collated for this purpose. A separate section of the book is devoted to each
of the three major works (»Holzschuher« / »Glimm« / »Paumgartner«). Sub-
chapters address historical questions (donorship, intended place of installation,
acquisition history), art-historical aspects (description, artist's hand, dating, sub-
sequent influence, critique of copies, reception), and considerations of materials
(nineteenth- and twentieth-century restorations). In the case of the Holzschuher
epitaph in Nuremberg, a preliminary drawing of Dürer's is taken into account,
and in that of the Paumgartner epitaph, a relatively large-format drawing made
after the panel is considered.
In describing the panels, iconographical and compositional issues are ad-
dressed, and paintings that served Dürer as models are discussed following the
descriptions proper. As regards the issue of the artist's own hand, reference is
made to recent and earlier dactyloscopic investigations. In view of the grave in-
cident of 1988 (see below), questions of conservation are considered by way of
conclusion.
The patrons of the memorial panels discussed here were representatives of lead-
ing patrician families in Nuremberg and one of the city's respected goldsmiths.
From our present vantage point we may assume that the three panels not only
served obvious purposes of religious veneration in the Nuremberg churches in
which they were located but were also meant to perpetuate the memory of de-
ceased family members and thus to serve the personal devotions of the donors.
To reconstruct the circumstances surrounding the commissions, a thorough
study of all available sources regarding the families concerned was necessary in
each case (living circumstances, social standing, dates of death, places of burial).
In the case of the Holzschuher and Paumgartner works, clear indications were
found that these were commissioned in honor of both deceased parents by their
already adult children; in the case of the Glimm Lamentation it was the death of
his wife which occasioned the prosperous Nuremberg goldsmith to donate a de-
votional image of this kind to the Predigerkirche. The immediate reason for the
commissions to Albrecht Dürer was evidently the anniversary of a parent's or
wife's death. As regards the Holzschuher Lamentation, it became apparent that
the commission was given after the death of the donors' mother (just prior to