GERMAN SCHOOL OF ENGRAVING. 



Tides. *' At fhe beginning-oftliis curious book,'' fays Strutt, 

 *• is a large vignette, rcprefenting' Dr. Hartleib kneeling and 

 prefcnting it to the prinecfs Anne, who is featcd upon lier 

 throne ; and the names of thefc two perlonagrs arc engraven 

 at the bottom of their portraits. The prints in this book 

 are exceedingly rude ; but have not, as far as one can judge 

 from the copy of one of them, given in the "Idee generale 

 d'une Collection complete d'ellampcs," the appearance of 

 being fo ancient as thof? in the Apocalvple, or Poor Man's 

 Bible. This curious compilation is dated 1448, and the 

 Jiame of Jorg Schapff, the artill, who is fuppofed to have 

 pei-fonned the eugravings, appears upon the fourth page.'' 



Of Hans Sporer and Johan vou Padcrborn, who are men- 

 tioned among the earlicll German engravers on wood, we 

 know nothing more than their names. They may perliapa 

 be the autbors of forae of the works we have enumerated. 



Johan Schnitzcr executed the geographical charts for the 

 edition of Ptolemy, printed at Ulm ir. i486. His map of 

 the world is ornamented with ten rude heads, which are 

 intended to rcprcfentthe winds, and is infcribed, " Initulp- 

 tum ell per .lohannem Schnitzcr dc Arnflieim.'' 



Sandrart indeed mentions and copies a jJriiit, wWch he 

 believes to bear the date of 1455, and which is marked with 

 a cypher, fuch as the reader wili find in our iirit: plate of the 

 monograms, &c. of the German fchool of engravers. As 

 "kliis cypher is compofed of the initials of plans Sporer, it 

 may pollibly be from his graver ; yet neither Sandrart, nor 

 the author of " The little clu-onological Scries of Engra- 

 vers,'' which was printed at Cambridge, afcribe it to him ; 

 tlie latter afferts in his preface, that the two fives in the date, 

 er what Sandrart fuppofes to be fuch, are intended for 

 fevens ; which makes a difference of twenty-two years in 

 the age of the print, and brings it down to the time when 

 the elder Schauflcin is believed to have flouriflicd. 



The fnbjeft of the above print is a young woman 

 careffing an elderly man while flie fteals his purfe ; a fnbjccl 

 which lias been often repeated by other mailers, both on 

 copper and on wood. 



In what part of Germany, Hans or John Schauflcin \vas 

 born does not appear. Strutt fays, " his prints are exe- 

 cuted in a bold Ipirited ftyle, and the compofitions fliew him 

 to have been a man of genius, though the ftiff manner which 

 characterized the early German mailers obfcures much of 

 their merit. Befidcs which they are incorretlly drawn; the 

 extremities of the figures, in particular, art very defective. 

 Schauflcin ufually marked his prints with an H and an S ; 

 rtr an I and an S joined together in various ways." To 

 thefe he fometimes added a baker's peel, whicli formed a 

 pun upon his name, a peel, in the German language, being 

 called Schajifcl, and the word Srhaeujlein fignifying a little 

 peel. At other times we find prints of this early period, 

 marked with two little peels crofling each other, which 

 perhaps may mean the two Schaufleins, if they ever 

 worked in conjunttion. 



The works of the elder Schauflcin are chiefly very fmall, 

 and he is t'heretore clafled among " the little mailers.'' 

 The moil remarkable of them are, " A Crucifixion, with 

 St John, the Virgin, and two Soldiers ;" "The Virgin and 

 Child ;" " St Chrillopher,'' and " St. Laurence in Con- 

 verfation with St. Auguilin :'' thefe are all of the circular 

 form, and each about two inches and a quarter in dia- 

 meter. 



The principal wood cuts by the younger Schauflcin are 

 as follow, " Adam and Eve," a fmall upright ; " Lot and 

 bis Daughters,'' a middling-fized print, length-ways ; 

 " Cliriil preaching to the Multitude from the Ship ;" a 

 loiddiing-uzed prmt, length-ways, marked with an I aad 



an S joined together, without the peel ; " Tlie Life of 

 Chrill ;" a fet of middling-fizcd upright prints, in quarto; 

 another fet of " The Life of Chriil ;' ' in an oftavo volume, 

 confining of 37 prints, entitled " Vite et palfo Jefu Chriili," 

 &c. pnbliflied at Fraiicfort by Clirillian Egoluphus, A. D. 

 1537. To thefe are ad.led, " Hiilorin[' Evangelio ;'' con- 

 taining the miracles, parables, &c. of Chriil, in thirty-fix 

 prints, the fame fize as the above, and printed on both fides. 

 Thefe are marked with the I and S joined together upon 

 the peel. 



This artid is prefiimed by Strutt to have alfo engraved 

 on copper: but perhaps " the very free etching of a land- 

 fcape,'' if not tlie plate executed with the graver, of 

 " Soldiers converfing," of which this autlior treats, may be 

 the work of a third engraver of the fame firname. The date 

 of the latter is l J51, and Strutt has previoufly recorded of 

 the tliird Schauflcin, that he has fci.^n by him a print of two 

 men fighting, cut on wood, in a cuarfo but fpirited manner, 

 and a very fine mallerly etching in the ilyle of a painter, 

 reprefenting a large company at an entertainment in a 

 garden ; which prints prove him to liave been a man of 

 great abilities. He was probably of the fame family with 

 the former two. 



Ill the year 1493, appeared the celebrated Chronicle of 

 Nuremberg, which was compiled by Hermann Schcdel. 

 a folio work, ornamented with a conCdcrablc number of 

 engravings on wood by Wilhelm Pleydenwcrft" and Michael 

 Wolgemut. Thefe engravings are greatly fuperior to all 

 that had previoufly appeared in Europe, and conlift, for the 

 moll part, of figures 01 various kinds, and landfcapes which, 

 though profefiTcdly views of certain cities, towns, &c. bear 

 fo little refcmblance to thofe places refpeftivcly, that they 

 are probably altogether tlie work of f;uicy. They are, how- 

 ever, cut in a bold and fpirited ftyle, and the charafters of 

 the heads are in fome inllances far from being badly de- 

 lineated, though that meagre ilifi"ncfs is every where pre- 

 valent, which fo fl.rongly marks the early art of Ger- 

 many. 



Pleydenwerff was a native of Germany, and perhaps of 

 Nuremberg, but it does not appear that he ever engraved 

 on copper, or ufed any monugram or other mark by which 

 to dillinguidi his engravings from thofe of his afTociate. 



Michael Wolgemut, or Wolgemuth, was born at Nurem- 

 berg in the year 1434. He is faid to have been inftructcd 

 in engraving by a certain Jacob Walch, but both Strutt 

 and plubcr doubt this fail, grounding tlieir doubt on the 

 want of refcmblance between the ftyles of dcfign and engrav. 

 ing of thefc two mafters. Walch does not appear to have 

 engraved at all upon wood, whereas V/olgemut did little 

 elfe. The engravings on copper attributed to Wolgemut do 

 not bear even a diilant refcmblance to thofe of Walch. The 

 latter v.as a tame artill, or ratlier workman, and his work 

 charafterized by labour and care, which is generally ill 

 bellowed ; whereas Wolgemut may even be termed an artid 

 of genius, a word, by the bye, which feems to batter down 

 the argument of Strutt and Huber, fince if a man of genius 

 lludy under a mere manual workman, as by chance ke may, 

 he will certainly emerge from the ilyle, or want of ll)'le of 

 his mailer. 



Wolgemut did cccafionally engrave on copper, but his 

 works on wood are far more numerous, and more generally 

 known. In Strutt's account of this artill, he fays, " we 

 have fome fev.- excellent engravnigs on copper, executed 

 about this time : thefe have much of that fpirited ilyle in 

 them whicli appears in the' wooden cuts of Wolgemut ; they 

 are marked with a W furmounted by a fmall o, and thefe 

 prints, I verily believe, are the produdlion of iiis graver." 

 4 He 



