310 IDENTIFICATION OF THE ARTISAN AND ARTIST. 



man walked most liarmouiously liaud in band; but I tbiuk he does not 

 go far enough ; he ought to have said that it was a city in which the arti- 

 san and the artist icere the most perfectly combined. At a very early period, 

 that iSj as early as 1355, there was produced a piece of work such as is at 

 this day the admiration of all artists. And what was it? It was a mere 

 well, a fountain in the public square ; "the beautiful fountain," " the beau- 

 tiful well," as it is to this day most justly called. I^ow, this was made en- ' 

 tirely by the designer, by the artist himself, Hofer, who united in himself 

 these two qualities; and it is acknowledged that in the treatment of the 

 metal work, and in the beauty of the religious images which surround this 

 fountain, but few steps have been made in art since that time. And he, 

 as I observed, was a mere workman; he did his own work. At a later 

 period — at what is considered the third period of art, in iTuremberg — 

 there is another remarkable piece of metal work ; and I am glad to 

 find that in the last report just published by the department of practi- 

 cal art, Mr. Smirke has introduced a letter in which he begs that this 

 piece of workmanship, which he calls one of the most celebrated pro- 

 ductions in metal, may be copied by casts, and brought to England as a 

 specimen of art. Now that beautiful production was of as early a 

 period as 150G; it was made between 1506 and 1519, and it is the 

 shrine of St. Sebald, in his church at Nuremberg; an exquisite piece of 

 work — so beautiful, so elegant, as that no icouoclasm had dared to touch 

 it (though I must say that Nuremberg had been i>reserved from the re- 

 proach of that error) — but there it is, in its freshness and its beauty 

 as it came from the artist's hand ; in the center, a shriue of silver, in 

 which is the body of the saint, and around it what may be called a cage 

 or grating of the most perfect metal work, and with statues of most 

 exquisite workmanship. Now I do wish this to be brought to England — 

 a copy, that is, of it — not merel}' because it will show what was done 

 in ages that we consider hardly .emerging from barbarism ; not only what 

 beautiful inspirations religion could give the artist; but because it will 

 show to those who are trying to raise the character of any art the true 

 principle upon whicli alone it can ever he raised to tchat it was then. They 

 will see the artist portrayed ui)on it — Peter Yischer ; they will see him 

 with his apron on; they will see him with his chisel and his mallet in 

 his hand; they will see that he aspires to nothing more than to be a 

 handicraftsman, a workman in metal, who yet could conceive, and then 

 design, this most magnificent production of man's hand. 



Another example, something of the same sort, we shall find in a 

 neighboring country. There is at Antwerx), likewise, a beautiful well 

 near the cathedral ; and if you ask who it was that produced this, you 

 will hear that it was one who sometimes had been known as a painter, 

 and at others, under the more familiar appellation of the "Blacksmith 

 of Antwerp," as a blacksmith; and there is a piece of iron-woric which 

 I fear that not our most perfect works could turn out — certainly not, 

 nothing that could be compared with it. And Quintin Matsys was 



