House & Garden 
knowledge gained in a trip to Italy, during his 
early manhood, was enabled to introduce in 
his native city the artof Majolican tile-making. 
H is designs, always modeled by hand in high 
relief, were a stride beyond the work of his 
teachers, and the brilliancy of the enamel he 
and his associates produced tar exceeded the 
Italian. That his knowledge of drawing and 
design was unusually great, is proven by the 
high character of the work revealed in the tiles 
as well as in the many figures which served 
to decorate the niches and corners of the 
superstructures of the stoves. Most of the 
tiles are dark green in color, though some 
are brown combined with yellow, and they 
frequently measure as much as twenty-five 
by twenty-seven inches. This affords space 
for the elaboration of scriptural subjects, a 
decoration fondly indulged in. 
Hirschvogel was of a restless inquiring 
turn of mind, and not content with the wide 
scope that glass-painting and tile-making 
gave him to express his artistic feelings and 
mental powers, he turned to wood engraving, 
science and mathematics, and also wrote a 
book on perspective and one on geometry. 
He soon wandered to Vienna, where he was 
employed in various ways by the king. This 
added doubtless to his fame, though his 
imaginative and creative powers were prob¬ 
ably curtailed by the exactions of the autocrat. 
In strong contrast to Hirschvogel stands 
Hans Kraut, of the town of Villigen in the 
Black Forest, where he lived and died. 
Although a contemporary of Hirschvogel, 
Kraut never attained the fame of the Nurem¬ 
berg potter. The mental awakening of the 
century had not penetrated to Kraut’s forest- 
girt home; and though as a ceramic artist he 
has no superior, and his stoves are certainly 
beautiful works of art, he was looked upon 
by his ignorant fellow villagers as a sorcerer. 
STOVES IN THE ROYAL PALACE AT NUREMBERG 
