YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY THE HISTORY OF THE LIFE ALBRECHT DURER. AljgKfS j i Isftl 'Sua/- ~ ^v-' '-?™^B-.'.' ¦;ij|B fe jg2> /5?« jSYi- '/\UirrtusDum-rnN-rnii( _B Si_pi^ * - 1 / A ' ', -' 'lutnmmpproprilS in rffrn ||f (.A c** ' At'lAlJt1 mm- Wm '.iMte' ?.: PlflS'-WW ¦ /^¦HBw,¦¦',7' Wl Hft A. W" Aa"-- m- kitj ' '.¦¦ §A A f A\f-..% e , ;•'+.' .i t ^¦'''^^¦i/ *;' SW " ', sU-; ;W';--- --- :--' : ::- A - .£ -y VSr- _•£* WpA "' "; '.<¦•'' 1 JWlA; ;j vi ii 'i'1_k^__t . •r^_l''l»'-' '"A* ' .¦¦ ' ' ,. "> > I*" '.. ' A A? -'-' '' * ,,f iw^AA '' %« ¦ifr ;p ,,:„ . f:im& ftf1 .-¦' 1- . WA ^^^SA^, '.I.JikKCHT lltlKl.'H. THE HISTORY OF THE LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER OF NURNBERG. WITH A TRANSLATION OF HIS LETTERS AND JOURNAL, AND SOME ACCOUNT OF HIS WORKS. BY Mary Margaret (K.) Heaton MRS. CHARLES HEATON! MACMILLAN AND CO. 1870. *?4Y A L Elr Ten of the Illustrations in this volume are reprodtictions by the Autotype {carbon) process, and are printed in permanent tints by Messrs. Cztndall aud Fleming, under licence from the Autotype Company, Limited. LONDON : X. CI.AV, SONS, ANU TAVLOB, l-KINTUKS, UUUAD STKIIHT HILL. PREFACE. It appears at first sight somewhat strange that a separate life of the greatest of German artists should never before have been pub lished in England ; for the works — at any rate the engraved works — of Albrecht Diirer have for many years been held in high estima tion in this country by a certain class of thoughtful students of art and literature. But the rapid development of art education and the growth of true feeling in art which the last few years have witnessed, were both necessary before such a work could, with any chance of success, be addressed to general readers. For Albrecht Diirer is by no means an artist who appeals to all the world. The beauty and holiness of Raphael, the grace of Correggio, the glorious colour of Titian and Rubens — even the power and majesty of Michael Angelo — can be appreciated to some extent by all but the most ignorant or insensible; but the secret of Durer's strength lies further from the surface and requires more of intellectual and imaginative effort in its study than that of any of the Italian masters. His work is always transcendently good, but that it is also most beautiful will only be perceived by those whose eyes have been trained to seek out that high and subtle beauty which lies outside the region of the sensuous. vi PREFACE. But this book does not pretend to deal with the hidden mysteries of Durer's art. I have not been favoured, as some critics claim to have been, with any especial revelations, and therefore refrain from putting forward any hypotheses of my own on this subject. I cannot even profess to have given a critical history of his works, or to have formed any new catalogue of them for the benefit of connoisseurs, my principal aim having been to tell the story of Durer's life, using, whenever I could, his own words for that purpose. The translation of the letters, journal, and other papers relating to his personal history, has therefore formed the chief part of my task. These writings of his, which by rare good fortune have been handed down to us, reflect so vividly the simple loving heart with which his genius was associated, that I thought my readers would far rather have them in their crude, rough, and sometimes ungrammatical form, than any smooth biographical structure that I could build up out of them. I have taken the greatest pains to make my translations as faithful as possible, and they have at least this merit, that they are strictly from the original German; but the difficulty of rendering provincial German of the fifteenth century into English of the nineteenth, is so great that I have been obliged in some places to own myself conquered by it. In such places I have given the original words in a foot-note, or in the text, instead of following the example of a French translator of Durer's letters, who sometimes supplies their places with neat phrases of his own ; phrases which Durer might perhaps or ought to have used, but which assuredly he did not. The arrangement of the parts which I have adopted in this book is somewhat unusual, and needs perhaps a few words of explanation. Part I. is in ordinary chronological order, but Part II., instead of following up the history of the life, is entirely devoted to a con- PREFACE. vii sideration of the works of Diirer. My reasons for this were, firstly, that there is a considerable hiatus which cannot now be filled up in our records of this portion of Durer's life ; and as we are certain from the dates of his engravings and pictures that this time was almost entirely occupied with hard work in his studio, there seemed a certain fitness in describing in this place those works of art which form the real history of his life at this period ; and, secondly, that it is almost impossible to understand the journal and some other of the later portions of the narrative without some knowledge of the art labours which had occupied the previous years of the artist. I feel sure that the irregularity of arrangement will not cause any inconvenience to the reader. The history of the works contained in Part II. is longer than I at first intended it to be, and on looking over its pages I find that there are not many important works which can with reasonable probability be ascribed to Diirer, that have not received some notice. I have indicated with great care most of the sources from which I have derived my information, but there are two or three which claim more than the mere casual recognition of a foot-note. The voluminous catalogue contained in the second volume of Joseph Heller's "Das Leben und die Werke Albrecht Durer's" (the first volume, which was to have contained the life, was never published), has been a guide to me, as it must be to every one who writes about Durer. Equally valuable and learned, and far more lucid in style and arrangement, is Dr. von Eye's "Leben und Wirken Albrecht Durer's." To acknowledge my deep obligations to these two books is simply tantamount to saying that I have read them, for each has added so much to the history of the subject as to be essential to every one who touches it. viii PREFACE. My warm thanks are likewise due to the authorities of the British Museum ; especially to Mr. Winter Jones, Dr. W. Wright, and Mr. G. W. Reid, who have always given me the most cordial sympathy and assistance in my work. To the numerous other friends, both in England and abroad, from whom I have received much valuable help, I can only offer in this place a general but not the less grateful acknowledgment. M. M. H. Lessness Heath, Kent, 1869. CONTENTS. INTRODUCTION. Nurnberg in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries. Modern Nurnberg — Its Mediaeval appearance — Its former glory— Artistic mind of Nurnberg in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries — Its mechanical activity — The first paper-mill of Germany — Koburger's printing-press — Regiomontanus — Workmen of Niirnberg — Peter Hele — Hanns Bullman — Hans Lobsinger — Erasmus Ebner — Wenzel Jamintzer — The Rath, or Town Council — Strikes — Form of government— High rank and importance of the merchants — Their wealth and magnificence— Rapid development of the Fine Arts — Sebald Schon- hofer — The Ruprechts — Adam Kraft — Peter Vischer — Veit Stoss — Character of their works — Hans Sachs — Martin Behaim Pages I — 25 PART I. FROM INFANCY TO MANHOOD. Chapter I. — Parentage, Birth, and Early Years. Albrecht Diirer the elder arrives in Nurnberg— Enters into the service of the gold smith, Hieronymus Haller— Marries Barbara Hallerin — Family register of the births of children— Birth of Albrecht Durer— Character of Durer's father— Birth of Willibald Pirkheimer— The schoolmaster in Niirnberg— Durer's first portrait of himself— Early drawings — Influence of his friendship with Pirkheimer on his character — Influence of the town life on his character . . . Pages 29 — 38 b CONTENTS. Chapter II. — Years of Apprenticeship and Travel. Works as a goldsmith under his father— Neudorffer's inaccurate statements— Was never a pupil of Schongauer's— Apprenticed to Michael Wohlgemuth— Michael Wohlgemuth— Martin Schongauer— Influence of Schongauer on Durer— Early woodcut— Early drawings— Portrait of Michael Wohlgemuth— Wander-Jahre— Portrait of 1493 described by Goethe Pages 39—50 Chapter III. — Marriage and Settlement in Nurnberg. Returns to Nurnberg— The testimony of Camerarius to Durer's nobility of character — Hans Frey — Agnes Frey — Marriage — German courtship in the Middle Ages — Willibald Imhofs diary of his courtship — Agnes Frey's temper — Domestic unhappiness — House in Nurnberg — Masterpiece or diploma picture — Received into the guild of painters — Plague-picture — Portrait in the Uffizj gallery — Portrait in the Munich gallery — Death of Albrecht Diirer the elder . . . Pages 51 — 65 Chapter IV. — Journey to Venice. Letters to Pirkheimer. Motives for the journey— Illness on the way — Curious preservation of the letters — Letter I. —First mention ofthe painting for the Tedeschi — Letter II. — Description of artist society in Venice — Giovanni Bellini visits Diirer — Anecdote related by Camerarius — Letter III. — Pirkheimer's commissions — Letter IV. — Summoned by the painters of Venice — His brother Hans Diirer — Letter V. — Commissions — Work at the picture for the Tedeschi — Letter VI. — Begins in bad Italian— Laughs at Pirkheimer — Andreas Durer — Letter VII.— Mock respect to Pirkheimer — Letter VIII. — Manuscript only recently discovered at the British Museum — Announces the completion of the painting for the Tedeschi — Letter IX. — Learns dancing— Speaks of his return— He is "a gentleman" at Venice— Journey to Bologna — Death of Mantegna Pages 66 93 Chapter V. — 1507-1520. No record of his personal history during these years of quiet work— Agnes Frey's method of viewing her husband's work— Story of the spy-hole— Death of Durer's mother— Interchange of presents with Raphael— Portrait sent to Raphael- Raphael's drawing sent to Durer— Journey to Augsburg— Portrait of the Emperor Maximilian— History of Durer's two sketch-books— Friends in Niirn- erg Pages 94 — 102 CONTENTS. xi PART II. WORKS. Chapter I. — Engravings on Wood. Argument as to whether Diirer cut his own blocks — The wood-engravers (Form- schncider) of Nurnberg — Woodcuts of the Apocalypse — Description of the cuts of the Apocalypse — Editions of the Apocalypse — The Life of the Virgin — De scription of cuts — The Great Passion — The Little Passion — Editions of the Little Passion — Single subjects — Copies ofthe woodcuts — Marc Antonio's piracies — Other artists who imitated Diirer Pages 105 — 145 Chapter II. — Works for the Emperor Maximilian. Intellect of Maximilian — His encouragement of literature and art — Anecdotes of Maximilian and Diirer — The Arch of Maximilian — Durer's difficulty in obtaining payment for his work — Various editions of the Arch— Early impressions — The Triumphal Car of Maximilian — Prayer-book of Maximilian — The Great Column — Portraits of Maximilian Pages 146 — 162 Chapter III. — Engravings on Copper. Intellectual character of Durer's works — Fantastic element — Idea of death— Mystery of Durer's Art — The Knight, Death, and Devil — The four Naked Women — The Coat of Arms with the Death's Head — The Adam and Eve — The Prodigal Son — Other single subjects — The Passion in Copper — Etchings — St. Jerome— Melencolia — St. Eustachius— The Great Fortune — Virgin subjects — St. Anthony — Best watermarks on the prints Pages 163—200 Chapter IV. — Paintings, Drawings, and Plastic Works. Portrait of Durer's father — Four repetitions of this portrait — The Feast of the Rose Garlands — The Adam and Eve — Correspondence with Jacob Heller — The Coro nation of the Virgin — Copy of this picture at Frankfort — The Adoration of the Trinity — The Four Apostles — Change in Durer's mode of painting in his later years — Letter to the Rath accompanying the Four Apostles— Baumgartner altar- piece — Other paintings at Munich — Portrait of Hieronymus Ilolzschuher — Paint ings in England— The Death of the Virgin — Drawings in the Albert collection at Vienna — History of the Imhof collection— Drawings in the British Museum — Drawings in private collections in England — Drawings in other collections — Plastic works — Birth of St. John the Baptist — Preaching of St. John the Baptist —Medals Pages 201—240 Chapter V. — Literary Works. Number of works ascribed by Camerarius to Diirer— The Art of Fencing — The Art of Mensuration — Book of Human Proportions — Manuscript of the Book of Human Proportions— Editions and translations of it — Diirer's verses — Pirk- heimer's and Spengler's mockery of them Pages 241—251 b2 xii CONTENTS. PART III. JOURNAL AND LAST YEARS. Chapter I. — Journey to the Netherlands in 1520. Journal. Motives of the journey differently stated by different biographers— Did not go to escape from his wife— Probable that he went in order to gain his Confirmatia from Charles V.— Objective character of his writing— Departure from Nurnberg — Journal from Niirnberg to Frankfort — From Frankfort to Koln — Arrival at Antwerp— Takes up his abode with Jobst Planckfelt — The Fugger family enter tained by the Antwerp painters — Makes the acquaintance of Erasmus — Great religious procession described — Goes to Brussels — Riches of the Netherlands — Returns to Antwerp — Entry of Charles V. into Antwerp — Goes to Aachen — Sees the coronation of Charles V. — Goes to Koln — Receives his Confirmatia — Returns to Antwerp —Journey into Zealand — In danger of shipwreck — Returns to Antwerp — Entertained by the goldsmiths of Antwerp — Patenir's painting of Lot and his daughters — Goes to Bruges — Entertained by the painters, goldsmiths, and merchants — Goes to Ghent — Received by the painters in splendid style — Falls ill— Is at Joachim Patenir's wedding — Outburst of religious feeling on hearing the news of Luther having been taken prisoner — Horse fair at Antwerp— Visit to Mecheln — Interview with the Archduchess Margaret — Lucas van Leyden — Bad bargains in the Netherlands — Borrows money of Imhof— Goes to Brussels — Draws the King of Denmark — Festivities in honour of the King of Denmark — Leaves Brussels and travels to Koln— Abrupt conclusion of Journal Pages 255—315 Chapter II. — Last Years in Nurnberg, and Death. Return to Nurnberg— Progress of the Reformation in the town— Influence of Pirk heimer, Spengler, and others — Effect on Durer's art — Portraits of Kleeberger, of Erasmus, and of Melanchthon— Intercourse of Durer with Erasmus and Melanch thon— Portraits of Pirkheimer, the Elector Albrecht of Mainz, Friedrich of Saxony, and Ulrich Varnbiihler— Last portrait of himself — Latest works — Illness — Letter to the Rath about the investment of his money — Mean conduct of the Rath— Durer's death— Inscriptions on his grave— Pirkheimer's grief— Pirkheimer's letter accusing Agnes Frey— Subsequent life of Agnes Frey Speedy extinction of the Diirer family— Conclusion Pages 316— 329 General Index p 333 Index to Works ,__ i> 337 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE Portrait of Albrecht Durer, painted by Himself . . Frontispiece (Autotype : from the Engraving by Forster, after the Picture in the Munich Gallery.) The Virgin seated on the Crescent Moon 25 (Reduced front the Vignette on ihe Title-page of" The Life of the Virgin'') Three Winged Children. 29 (From the small Engraving on Copper!) Albrecht Durer's House in Nurnberg 59 (From the Engraving in Dibdin's Bibliographical Tour.) Portrait of Willibald Pirkheimer 68 (Autotype : from the Engraving in the British Museum.) Fac-simile of Albrecht Durer's Handwriting 88 (From the Letter preserved in the King's Library, British Museum!) The Descent of the Four Horses 112 (Reduced from the Wood Engraving in the Series of " The Apocalypse.") Michael and his Angels fighting the Great Dragon 118 (Reduced from the Wood Engraving in the Series of " The Apocalypse.']) The Adoration of the Kings 122 (Reduced from the Wood Engraving in " The Life of the Virgin.") xiv LIST OE ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE Christ taking leave of His Mother 124 (Reduced from the Wood Engraving in " The Life of the Virgin") The Death of the Virgin 126 (Rediiced frojn the Wood Engraving in " The Life of the Virgin") Christ bearing the Cross 131 (Reduced from the Wood Engraving in " The Great Passion.") Christ's Dkscent into Hum. and Release of the Ancestors . . .132 (Reduced from the Wood Engraving in " The Great Passion.") Christ driving the Money- Changers out of the Temple . . . .134 (From "The Little Passion.'' Printed from a Cast taken from the Original Wood-block in the British Museum!) The Last Supper 136 (From " The Little Passion!' Printed from a Cast taken from the Original Wood-block in the British Museum!) The Decapitation of St. John the Baptist 138 (Reduced from the Wood Engraving.) Samson killing the Lion ja0 (Reduced from the Wood Engraving.) The Suffering Christ (see also page 128) I4e (Reduced from the Vignette on the Title of " The Great Passion.") The Knight and the Lady {The Promenade) x64 ( Woodcut : from the Engraving on Copper.) The Knight, Death, and the Devil r5g (Autotype : from the Engraving in the British Museum.) The Nativity (of the year 1504) (Woodcut : from the Engraving on Copper.) The Prodigal Son . 176 (Autotype : from the Engraving in the British Museum) aThe Great Horse . 180 (Woodcut : from the Engraving on Copper.) ?t. Jerome in his Chamber ... „„ . . loo (Autotype .¦ from the Engraving in the British Museum, LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. xv PAGE >Melencolia 192 (Autotype : from the Engraving in the British Museum!) The Conversion of St. Eustachius 194 (Autotype : from the Engraving in the British Museum!) The Coat of Arms with the Cock . . iy8 (Photo-Lithograph : from the Engraving!) The Feast of the Rose Garlands . 206 (Autotype : from an Outline Drawing of the Picture.) The Adoration of the Trinity ' . . 218 (Autotype : from an Outline Drawing of the Picture.) Christ bearing His Cross 234 (Photo-Lithograph : from the Original Drawing' in the British Museum) t -» The Naming of St. John the Baptist 238 (Autotype : from the Carving in Hone-stone in the British Museum) LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. INTRODUCTION. NURNBERG IN THE FIFTEENTH AND SIXTEENTH CENTURIES. "Wenn einer Deutschland kennen Und Deutschland lieben soil, Wird man ihn Nurnberg nennen, Der edeln Kiinste vol.." " Who Germany would know And Germany would love, To him old Nurnberg show, And all the art thereof." Nurnberg Rhyme. NuRNBERG at the present day is set in the midst of modern Germany, like one of its own rich mediaeval carvings in the midst of a modern wall. All around it surges and drives the nineteenth century, with its railroads, telegraphs, huge hotels, and stucco villas. But the nineteenth century stops outside the gates of Nurnberg ; everything within these still lives, breathes, and moves in the Middle Ages. Here are still the narrow streets with their rows of quaint houses, — each one differing from the other, and every roof forming a distinct study for an artist, — where Albrecht Diirer walked up and down with his friend Willibald Pirkheimer. Here is still the ancient castle with its massive towers, some of them dating back into the times of heathendom, around B a LIFE OF ALBRE CHT D URER. which the town grew from a mere little settlement of peasants and small traders who sought the protection of the castle towers, to be one of the largest and most important trading towns in the world. Here are still the noble Gothic churches, built when Art and Religion yet walked hand and hand; churches whose every stone is a thought clothed in all the solemn beauty of the past; and here in these churches are still the archaic old Byzantine and German pictures, with their long-necked saints and staring green-complexioned Madonnas, which no doubt gave Nurnberg's greatest artist his first ideas of pictorial art. No town indeed in all Europe preserves up to the present time such a vivid picture of the manner of life and mode of thought of the Middle Ages as this of Nurnberg. Even the very names of the inhabitants remain unchanged ; and when the stranger inquires for the house of Peter Vischer, or Adam Kraft, he is directed very likely to the abode of some present Peter Vischer, or Adam Kraft who keeps a beerhouse or a gingerbread shop in the town. Descendants of the grand old patrician families also, who were once the proud nobles of Nurnberg, still in many cases dwell in the curious old mansions inhabited by their ancestors, whose faded glory perhaps accords with their faded importance, — for Nurnberg, alas ! is a place of small importance in the modern world. It is a free imperial town no longer ; its Rath has departed, its trade has sought other channels, its artists are dead, its stirring life is a thing of the past, and now only the antiquarian and the art-loving stranger find any attraction within its gates. A certain amount of trade, of course, is still carried on ; Nurnberg toys are still in request by our little ones, and Nurnberg wood-carving is even now of superior excellence ; its gingerbread also has a certain gastronomic fame: but what is all this compared with the active commerce that it carried on with all parts of the civilized world in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries ? It was then, indeed, the greatest manufacturing town in Europe — the Birmingham of the Middle Ages ; but it differed in this respect from our modern Birmingham, that it had a soul in its manufacturing body, and produced not only beautiful fabrics and well- wrought iron and steel, but deep thinking and inquiring minds, and noble artists and workmen who have left the individual impress of their thoughts and endeavours on all the work that was done by their hands. ARTISTIC MIND OF NURNBERG. 3 For the workman in Nurnberg in the fifteenth century was not a mere machine that turned out so much wood-carving, or so many sculptured saints a day, at the cheapest possible rate ; he was not " A tool Or implement, — a passive thing employed As a brute mean, without acknowledgment Of common right or interest in the end," — but he wrought with an understanding spirit, and took pride in the perfecting of his work. The artist and the artisan were indeed at that time more often and more intimately united than they are at the present day. The greatest artist did not then think it beneath him to do his own manual and mechanical work, whilst the poorest workman sometimes rose to the rank of an artist by the expression of some true sentiment, or noble individual thought ; thus realizing Ruskin's ideal, of thought made healthy by labour, and labour made happy by thought. It is this free and intelligent expression of the workman's mind which gives such high value to all noble mediaeval art, and separates it so widely from the soulless, though perhaps more dexterous and skilled, productions of later times ; for, after all, it is the thought of the artist that we seek for in his work, nor can we rest satisfied with mere dexterity of execution, however much we may admire its ingenuity. Perhaps in no single city was this artistic mind ever more active than in Nurnberg during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Not only, as boasted in the proud burgher proverb, did " Nurnberg's hand Go through every land ; " but Nurnberg's thought, expressed in the art of the greatest of her sons, has travelled to lands which did not come within the limits of those old burghers' geographical knowledge, and has powerfully influenced the artistic culture of the whole German nation. But even before the time when the great Reforming Spirit of Germany found its highest artistic expression in the works of Albrecht Diirer, there were other noble artists in Nurnberg who were stirred though in a less powerful degree, by the same mighty influences' B 2 4 LIFE OE ALBRECHT DURER. and whose works reveal much of that independent national character which from an early period formed one of the most marked features of old German Art. Before, then, considering the position that Albrecht Diirer occupied in the Art-history of his country, or forming any judgment as to the meaning of his life and work, it is necessary to try and understand something of the teaching of the century that produced him ; more especially to trace its influence on the active life and thought of the town in which he was born, and on the minds of those artists who were his immediate predecessors and contemporaries. For, if we would properly study a star in the heavens, we must diligently observe, not only its position in the sky, but likewise the constellation in which it happens to be placed. As early as the very beginning of the fifteenth century a great mechanical activity was manifested in Nurnberg. The first paper-mill of Germany was established here in the year 1390, by one Ulman Stromer, who also wrote the first work ever published on the art of paper-making. This mill employed a large number of persons, all of whom were obliged to take an oath not to reveal the secret of the process, or ever to make paper on their own account. The Nurnberg workmen, however, proved somewhat refractory, and it appears that on the enlargement of his mill (to which they objected) Ulman Stromer had to bring them before the magistrates of the town, who imprisoned them until they returned to obedience and renewed their oaths. Such was the fifteenth century method of dealing with strikes.1 The printing-press also set up in Nurnberg by Antonius Koburger ranked second only to the celebrated one in Mentz, and had already in the fifteenth century as many as twenty-four presses, giving work to more than a hundred workmen,— a large number at that time. Thus at a comparatively early date Nurnberg was already in possession of two great sources of wealth and civilization— paper of her own making, and books of her own printing. Nor were there wanting men who knew how to make use of these advantages. The invention of printing naturally brought with it a 1 See Von Murrt "Journal zur Kunstgeschichte und Litteratur," vol v 1777 where there is a most interesting and detailed account of this Ulman Stromer and his workpeople. REGIOMONTANUS. 5 multiplication of writers, and the Nurnberg press in particular seems to have been well employed, and to have proceeded at an accelerating rate with the ever-increasing demands made upon it. At first, as at Mentz, Bibles, psalters, and primers, or prayer-books, were the principal works that were put forth by this press, but soon we find edifying homilies, more or less veracious chronicles, bitter religious satires, rhyming histories, and even scientific treatises appearing one after another much in the manner of modern times. Weidler, indeed, mentions no less than twenty-one works by Regiomontanus alone that issued from the Nurnberg printing-press. The name of this celebrated mediaeval mathematician and as tronomer brings us to the consideration of the influence he exerted on the development of that mechanical and artistic spirit for which, as before stated, Nurnberg was so early remarkable. Johann Muller, better known by his Latin appellation of Regio montanus, derived, according to some, from Konigshoven, the name of the town where he was born, was early distinguished for his scientific learning. At the age of fifteen he became the favourite pupil of the celebrated Georg Peurbach, who was then professor at Vienna, and for several years assisted him in his astronomical in vestigations. When Peurbach died, Regiomontanus completed several of the works which his master had left unfinished, and then, at the invitation of the king, Mathias Corvin, he went into Hungary, where he was employed in revising Greek manuscripts. But disturbances breaking out in Hungary, he determined to settle in Nurnberg, a town that must have offered many advantages for carrying out his scientific and mechanical inventions. He arrived in Nurnberg in the year 1471, the year in which Albrecht Diirer was born, and his settlement there undoubtedly gave a great forward impulse not only to the mechanical trades, but also to the mental progress of the town. Albrecht Diirer himself seems to have owed something to the influence thus exerted by Regiomontanus. He has been called "the mathe matician of painters," and certainly his knowledge of perspective and his scientific measurement of proportions prove that he must have possessed a considerable acquaintance with mathematics. The excel lent observatory also that he has designed in one of his woodcuts could not, one would imagine, have been planned unless he had known something of astronomy. 6 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. On his arrival in Nurnberg, Regiomontanus appears to have entered into a sort of friendly partnership with one of the principal citizens of the town, named Bernard Walther, who supplied him with money, and otherwise assisted him in carrying out his numerous designs and inventions. Soon the workshops of Nurnberg were in the highest activity and excitement with the calls made upon the ingenuity of their workmen by Regiomontanus and Walther. Together they constructed the first effective observatory ever erected in Europe, and instituted a regular course of astronomical observations such as few astronomers had then attempted. A comet that appeared about this time was the occasion of Regiomontanus writing his treatise on Paral laxes, first given to the world by the Nurnberg printing-press, which also put forth his celebrated " Calendar of the Ephemerides," a work that was so successful in its day, that in a short time, in spite of its immense price, the entire edition was sold out. Regiomontanus certainly only resided a few years in Nurnberg, for he was called to Rome in 1475 to assist Sixtus IV. in reforming the calendar, and died soon after his arrival in Italy, at the early age of forty ; but the active, inquiring, and inventive spirit that he had awakened, or perhaps, to speak more strictly, had fostered in Nurnberg, did not die out when he departed from the town. On the contrary, it rose to still greater height, ever seeking new paths and producing new and astonishing results. From time to time, in the brain of one of those old Nurnberg workmen some useful invention was shaped, or some practical improvement suggested in the arts already in use, such as has proved of the highest importance to the pro gressive civilization of mankind. Machinery of all kinds, but more especially as applied to ingenious and artistic contrivances, attained a high degree of perfection at this period. Watches, as every one knows (or ought to know, having been taught the fact in their earliest "Guides to Knowledge"), were invented by Peter Hele of Nurnberg, in 1500, and were at first, from their oval shape, called " live Nurnberg eggs." The clockmakers and locksmiths (for the trades seem to have been united) of Nurnberg were indeed amongst her most distinguished artificers ; and Hanns Bullman, " who made clocks with men and women's figures, which beat time on lutes," has the honour of having been the first to set up a true astronomical clock in one of the churches. The names of the various workmen of WORKMEN OF NbRNBERG. 7 Nurnberg which have been handed down to us in connexion with some useful discovery are indeed too numerous to mention. In reading the laudatory account of them given by Johann Neu- dorfer,1 who contributed himself not inconsiderably to the progress of thought in his native town, one feels almost inclined to believe that there could have been nothing left for the workmen of other towns and other ages to discover. Hans Lobsinger, for instance, claims to be the inventor of the air-gun, and Erasmus Ebner of that particular alloy of metals we know as brass — the brass of former times having had a different composition. The workers in metal, brasiers and bell-founders (Rothgiesser and Glockengiesser), were very numerous in Nurnberg, and some of them deserve to rank, as I hope presently to show, amongst the artists rather than amongst the artificers of the town. The organ-makers also carried on an important trade, and the organs of Nurnberg were celebrated all over Germany; indeed the town seems to have had a general musical reputation, for its wind-instruments were also greatly in request, and Christopher Denner, a workman of Niirnberg, is said to have been the inventor of the clarionet. The glass-painters likewise rank with the Rothgiesser as artificers who showed the highest artistic merit. Of these the principal be longed to the family of Hirschvogel, one member of which, travelling in Italy in the sixteenth century, learnt the Majorca secret of enamel ling pottery, and bringing it back with him to Nurnberg, established the first Majolica manufactory in Germany. Machinery for wire-drawing was employed at an early date. Its invention, however, does not seem to have been originally due to a Nurnberg workman, but to a Frenchman named Rudolph, who settled in the town at the end of the fourteenth century, and soon drove a most lucrative trade. But of all the trades followed in Nurnberg that of the goldsmiths was perhaps the most important. There were often as many as fifty master goldsmiths working in the town at the same time, and their elegant and artistic designs were celebrated all over Europe ; for 1 In his " Nachrichten von den vornehmsten Kunstlern und Werkleuten so inner- halb hundert Jahren in Nurnberg gelebt haben, 1546." Printed in 1828 from an old manuscript in the Campe collection. 8 LLFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. their craft was not a mere handicraft at this time. The goldsmiths of Nurnberg were not content with setting precious stones in costly but tasteless gold-work, or engraving silver and gold vessels with un meaning designs ; they executed real works of art, modelled and cast images in good metal, engraved seals and dies, and stamped coins and medals. All sham jewellery was eschewed by them ; indeed an old decree of their guild of the year 151 1 especially forbids the goldsmiths of Nurnberg " from making golden trinkets, such as crosses and rings and other articles, hollow, and then filling up the hollow spaces with wax."1 Likewise they were not allowed to work in silver or gold that was below a certain standard of purity settled by law. Neither could they gild copper or brass without especial permission, for we find that Sebastian Lindenast, an artist who worked almost entirely in beaten, or wrought copper, out of which he made, as Neudorfer tells us, " vessels of all kinds, as if they had been of gold or silver," was " graciously privileged by the Emperor Maximilian to gild or silver his copper works," — a privilege that was refused to his son Sebald, who was likewise a worker in copper, but who, we may suppose, was considered too young to be allowed to practise the alchemical art of turning copper into gold. Such restrictions as these would, it is to be feared, greatly interfere with the Birmingham trade of the present day ; but, as I have before said, the Nurnberg of the fifteenth century was animated by a different spirit to that of our modern manufacturing towns. Cheapness and outward show were not the only things desired by the rich German burghers ; and when they bought their wives a golden ornament, or presented their god-children with a silver tankard, they took care that it should be " the genuine article," showing therein a wiser discrimination and a better taste than their French and English representatives in the nineteenth century. Amongst the most renowned of the Nurnberg goldsmiths stands the name of Wenzel Jamintzer, who is celebrated for having executed the most beautiful and artistic representations of leaves, flowers, insects, and other natural objects in delicate filagree silver. Some of his beautiful work is still shown in the town collection in the 1 See Baader, "Beitrage zur Kunstgeschichte Niirnbergs :" Zweite Reihe Nord hngen. 1862. PATERNAL GOVERNMENT OF THE RATH. 9 Rathhaus. The seal-engravers and die-sinkers of Nurnberg were likewise famed, and important commissions were entrusted to them by many of the kings and princes of the Fatherland. Thus we find that in 1452 King Ladislaus of Bohemia applied to the Rath (the town council, in whose hands ¦ lay the whole government of the town) for an engraver for his great royal seal. The Rath recommended a certain goldsmith and burgher named Seitz Herdegen, who at the king's request was permitted to go to Prague with another goldsmith named Holper, to prepare and engrave the king's seal. Hanns Krug also, in 1508, executed several dies for the coinage of the Elector of Saxony.1 This Hanns Krug became in 15 13 the official die-sinker and medal-coiner to the town ; for Nurnberg disdained to send to foreign workmen to get her coins and medals struck, but had her own master of the mint, as we should now designate him, who made her official seals, stamps, and medals, and who received, like the town carpenter, the town architect, and the town stone-mason, a small retaining salary from the Rath, over and above being paid for any work he might be called on to perform in the service of the town. The Rath always took the most fatherly interest in the welfare of the workmen of Nurnberg : indeed at times its watchful care appears to have been carried almost to the length of tyrannical supervision; for, like some well-meaning but obstinate old fathers who refuse to perceive that their children have become men and women capable of thinking and judging for themselves, the Nurnberg Council continued to exercise foolish restrictions and to impose galling restraints upon the artists and artisans of the town, long after they had grown out of the feudal childhood of the dark ages. This paternal supervision and restraint, although sometimes carried to excess, proved, however, ¦ it must be admitted, far more productive of honest and noble work, than the careless indifference of the State towards her working children that has prevailed for so many years in England— an indifference from which she is now, alas ! painfully awakened by the noise of strikes, trades' unions, and the other methods that her workmen take to prove that they are no longer children, but have a right to judge and act for themselves. Workmen's strikes were not, as I have before said, utterly unknown in Nurnberg even in the fifteenth century, but any disputes arising 1 Baader, loc. cit. C IO LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. between the master and his workpeople were settled, as in the case before mentioned, of Ulman Stromer and his paper-makers, by the Rath, which had absolute power to impose such conditions — or, if necessary, punishments — as it deemed fit. But before entering further into the- consideration of the position of the workman in Nurnberg in the fifteenth century, it will, I think, be desirable to learn something of the form of government under which he lived. This is the more necessary, as the English reader, unless he happens to have studied what the Germans call the Stadt-wesen (nature of life in the towns) of the Middle Ages, will find it difficult to form any just conception of the confined circle in which men's thoughts then moved, of the local and national prejudices acting on their minds, and of the narrowing influences and petty jealousies shut within a town's walls. The free imperial town of Nurnberg, possessed of a constitution of its own, and enjoying numberless privileges and immunities, granted by various emperors from an early date, held naturally a high position amongst the cities and towns of Germany, many of which were bur dened by grievous exactions, and subject to the claims of tyrannous lords. The government, which was as strictly oligarchal in its character as that of Venice (the great commercial city of Italy, as Nurnberg was of Germany), was entirely in the hands of a few patrician families, who generation after generation filled all the chief offices of state, and were invested with almost absolute power. Members of these families formed what was styled the Kleine Rath, out of which there were chosen seven aelteren Herren (Septemviri). From these the three eldest were selected as Hauptletite (Triumviri), and from these again the two eldest (Duumviri), called the Losunger, who were at the head of the whole body, and were invested with similar authority to that of the Doges of Venice. It was, however, quite possible for the other members of the council of state, the Kleine Rath, to restrain the arbitrary power of these Losunger, and even to call them to account for any infringement of the laws. Justice, indeed, seems to have been as fairly administered by the government of Nurnberg as could well be expected from a despotic aristocratic body, unrestrained by the fear of the vox populi.1 Certainly there are dungeons and torture- chambers | The first history of the town of Nurnberg was written about 1470 by Siegmund Me.sterle,n, a clergyman at Grundlach. That justice had, at all events, little respect TRUE STRENGTH OF NURNBERG. n under the Castle, which tell of secret imprisonments, and other hideous means that the arbitrary governments of the Middle Ages used to take to stifle the complaints of their subjects, or silence the voice of their enemies ; yet, so far as we know, the old Rathhaus at Nurnberg is unstained by any of those fearful crimes and deeds of cruel injustice that rise in our memories, and darken for us the fair face of the Doge's palace in Venice. The policy of the Rath of Nurnberg was, on the whole, a wise and a peaceful one, and that it must have possessed a general reputation for integrity in its dealings is proved by the fact that the Princes and Electors of Germany often referred their disputes to its arbitration ; indeed, its government seems to have been respected abroad, and to have been productive of a fair amount of civil order and security at home. But the true strength of Nurnberg in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, lay not so much in her aristocratic government as in the mercantile activity and advancing prosperity of her middle classes and the intelligent minds and cunning hands of her workmen. Every where was manifested an all-embracing spirit of commercial enterprise, which poured new wealth into the coffers of the merchants, and developed new industries day by day. Successful commerce formed, indeed, the solid foundation of all the wealth and prosperity of Nurnberg. Her merchant-princes vied with those of Italy and the Netherlands in their opulence and magnificence, nor were they far behind these in their taste for art, and encouragement of literature. For the merchants of Nurnberg were not men solely occupied with their gains and their losses, but were in many instances men of high cultivation of mind, and belonging to the noblest families in Germany. The great firm of Pirkheimer, for instance, which sent its merchandise half over Europe, did not merely represent the monied interest of the town, but, like that of the Medici at Florence, it was a great power in the state, and a focus around which all the intellect, knowledge, and refinement of the time was gathered. The heads of this firm were statesmen and warriors, councillors and savants, patrons of art and literature, as well as landed proprietors and capitalists, and they knew how to appreciate, and not to persons in mediaeval Nurnberg is proved by the account Meisterlein has given of the " Vorderster Losunger," the head of the whole government, being called to account for having appropriated to his own use some of the public money. He was imprisoned and tortured auf der Folter gelegt, confessed his crime, but then recanted, and was finally executed durch den Strang hingerichtet, on February 28th, 1469. C 2 I2 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. merely to patronise the men of genius and learning who turned to them for encouragement and reward. But even the simple burghers of Nurnberg, who had no " claims of long descent," nor any pretensions to the learning and culture of these great patrician merchants, displayed an amount of comfort and even luxury in their dwellings, which, although very insufficient to satisfy the wants of the humblest tradesman of our times, was yet deemed a rare and astonishing circumstance in the fifteenth century. ^Eneas Sylvius, afterwards Pope Pius II., who visited Nurnberg on his tour through Germany, was immensely struck by the wealth dis played by its inhabitants, and declares emphatically, " that the King of Scotland did not live so handsomely as a moderate citizen of Nurnberg." ^Eneas Sylvius is certainly a well-known flatterer, and he might besides have had a double motive in extolling the citizens of Nurnberg, from whom he was endeavouring at the time to extort money for the Papal chair ; but Conrad Celtes, another contemporary witness, likewise tells us concerning these same citizens, that " their wives went abroad loaded with rich jewels, and that most of their household utensils were of gold and silver." This outward magnificence existed, of course, side by side with the want of many comforts and refinements that we deem absolutely essential to the poorest homes. The sunlight still penetrated to the interiors of these burgher dwellings only through dim horn or oiled paper, for few of these " moderate citizens " could afford the luxury of glass panes, even though they decked their wives with jewels. The "live Nurnberg eggs " were rarities reserved for kingly gifts, and were regarded more as curiosities than as having any practical use ; even the great com plicated clock of the Frauenkirche, with its brazen figures of the Emperor and the Seven Electors, who passed before him when the hour struck, was probably less trustworthy than the ordinary sun-dials by which the Nurnberg workmen regulated their hours of work and play. But we must remember that although the fifteenth century was ignorant of many of the appliances and inventions that have become habitual to us in the nineteenth, we yet owe to its active and inven tive spirit a large number of discoveries, without which our modern civilization would seem very defective. It was a time when knowledge was sought after with the untiring energy of youth, when men's minds leapt forward eagerly to grasp new truths, and during which this DEVELOPMENT OF THE ARTS. 13 inquiring spirit was at last rewarded by " the two grand discoveries by which the mind of man first attained its majority " — the discovery of the new hemisphere, and of the planetary motions. But this grand world-development of the fifteenth century, only concerns us at present in its local manifestation in Nurnberg. Here, as elsewhere, the great forward impulse given to man's thoughts was made visible in his works, and it is not only in works of practical utility, such as those I have hitherto been considering, but also in the higher regions of art and poetry that this same progressive thought is discern ible ; for it must not be supposed that a practical and mechanical spirit was the only one that animated the burghers and artisans of Nurnberg. Beauty as well as utility was sought after by them with ardent zeal, and noble works of art were produced at the same time as the more strictly utilitarian inventions were perfected. The same favour able conditions that led to the rapid development of the Arts in the great commercial cities of Italy, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, existed likewise in the free towns of Germany and the Netherlands ; and accordingly we find that the Arts took refuge in these prosperous little islands of commerce from the wars and tumults that were going on in the world around. Civil freedom and commercial prosperity have indeed always conduced to the true growth of the Fine Arts far more than any amount of princely patronage, and nowhere, as we have seen, were these conditions more distinctly favourable than in the "Birmingham of the Middle Ages." Gothic architecture, that petrified expression of the thoughts and longings of the Teutonic mind, was the first of the Arts that rose to a high degree of perfection, forming the basis of the sculpture and other plastic Arts for which Nurnberg is more especially remarkable. At first, as we usually find it to be the case, the sculpture of Nurnberg was strictly subservient to its architecture, the statues and other decorative carvings of the older Gothic churches having no separate existence from the sacred buildings they adorn. But gradually as the Arts acquired greater strength and freedom, sculpture assumed once more, as it had done in ancient Greece, an individual life ; and although still chiefly employed in decorating and enriching Gothic architecture, yet it manifested a distinct growth of its own, and pro duced works which are capable of being regarded in their individual aim and significance. I4 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. The sculptured Saints and Prophets, as well as the traditional repre sentations of events in the life of Christ, in the Church of St. Lawrence, still partake largely of the architectural character ; for although the forms are much more graceful, and the drapery less angular than is usual with merely decorative sculpture, yet it is evident that they were intended by the architect simply to heighten the effect of his rich Gothic doorways, and not in any way to be considered as possessing a separate merit and interest apart from his work. Next, however, in point of date to these statues of the grey old Church of St. Lawrence, come those above the porch of the Frauen kirche, executed between 1355 and 1361 by Sebald Schonhofer, the first artist sculptor, as distinct from the masonic stone-cutter, of whose works we find any remains in Nurnberg. The Schone Brunnen (Beautiful Fountain) likewise, which rises in graceful and slender beauty in the market-place, was executed, it has always been supposed, by the same architects (Georg and Fritz Ruprecht) as the neighbouring Frauenkirche, and enshrines in its delicate open tracery no less than twenty-four statues by Schonhofer, all possessing a distinctly sculptural character. They represent the Emperor and the Seven Electors, the nine strong heroes celebrated in mediaeval romance, and Moses and the Seven Prophets. Lord Lindsay praises these noble statues as being "in design and ex pression not unworthy of Italy." It is not, however, possible to institute any just comparison between such works as these and the sculptures of the same period in Italy ; for whilst the latter reveal the study of classic models, and exhibit a revived feeling for antique grace and beauty of form, the former are marked with the strong stamp of the Teutonic mind, and express the independent originality of German thought. This, indeed, is what principally strikes us in the works of the fifteenth and the early part of the sixteenth centuries in Germany. They are for the most part purely German, untinged, as yet, by that classico-Italian feeling that afterwards exercised such a powerful denationalising influence on Flemish and German Art, for the ideal beauty of Italy proved in the seventeenth century a fatal siren to the artists of Germany and the Netherlands, luring them away from their own true Northern loves to serve a foreign mistress. This attractive but dangerous siren was as yet unknown to the artists of Nurnberg in the fifteenth century, and their art consequently is essentially national, and even local. ADAM KRAFT. 15 Especially is this strong national character observable in the two great artist- workmen whose rich creative fancies, carved by the one in stone, and cast by the other in bronze, have left enduring memorials of beauty in their native town. The art of Adam Kraft and of Peter Vischer belongs to the Niirn berg of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and to no other place or time ; and those connoisseurs who can only admire the expressions of the classical and the Italian minds, will find no beauty in the strange fantastic forms and homely sentiment of these early German artists. Yet, if we take the two styles of art as expressive of two different forms of thought, the Gothic art of the fifteenth century in Germany seems not unworthy of holding a position side by side with the grand and noble art of Italy, as known to us in the great works of Donatello and Ghiberti. The " Sacraments-Hauslein," and the " Shrine of St. Sebald," the chefs d 'ceuvre of Adam Kraft and Peter Vischer, may indeed not unfitly be taken as the Northern expression of the same artistic development which produced in Italy the celebrated Ghiberti gates. The Sacraments-Hauslein, or receptacle for the Host, springs up like some slender tree covered with thick hoar-frost, towards the roof of the Church of St. Lawrence, in the interior of which this growth of Gothic fancy has its root. It rises from a platform supported by the kneeling figures of Kraft and his two apprentices, to a height exceed ing sixty feet, throwing forth, as it shoots upward, the most delicate foliage and intertwining branches ; in the midst of which are set statues of the saints, and exquisite bas-reliefs representing the Passion of our Lord. The luxuriant fancy and artistic skill displayed in this work are something surprising. Every minute detail is finished with the most loving care, and each separate ornament has its own individual character, although the whole is so evidently the emanation of one master-mind. It appears to have grown up naturally in its place, differing remarkably in this -respect from modern structures, the separate parts of which so often have the appearance of having been brought from different parts of the world, and constrained, against their will, to unite into one inharmonious whole. Adam Kraft, the creator of this high-aspiring Hauslein, was probably born at Nurnberg about the year 1430, and died in the hospital at Schwabach (so at least say some of his earlier biographers) r6 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. in 1507 or 1508. He could work, Neudorfer informs us, as well with his left hand as with his right, and was altogether so skilful in the use of his tools that he was able to execute the most delicate work in the hardest material. Neudorfer and Sandrart,1 indeed, are of opinion, from the extreme fineness of his cutting, that he must have known some process for softening his stone before working on it, and then rendering it hard when his labour was achieved ; but it seems more probable that he made use of one of those sorts of stone that are comparatively soft when first hewn from the quarry, but which become hard by exposure to the air. The portrait of Kraft given in Neudorfer and in Sandrart, is taken from the most northern of the figures supporting the Sacraments- Hauslein, but there seems much greater reason for supposing that the western figure is the one that the sculptor really intended for his own portrait. This alone wears the mason's apron, and is distinguished by the club of the masonic order. It represents a man of about forty years of age, in the full vigour of physical and mental power; which is sufficient, if this be accepted as his portrait, to disprove those biographers who represent him as a very old man when he accom plished his great work. With Adam Kraft there lived in constant communion and art- fellowship, the celebrated Meister Peter Vischer, the elder, whom no prince or potentate ever went to Nurnberg without visiting, and Sebastian Lindenast, who worked chiefly in beaten copper, " making vessels of all kinds as if they had been of gold or silver." These three brother-artists used, we are told, to meet together on feast-days and holidays to practise the art of designing, and so intent were they on their labours that they would often, although on a feast-day, " separate without eating or drinking." In an art-novel published in Nurnberg in 1829, which purports to be founded on a manuscript written by Jacob Heller, the Frankfort merchant for whom Durer painted the Ascension of the Virgin, there is an interesting description of a stranger's visit to Peter Vischer's house on the evening of a feast- day. The three old men are discovered seated at a table, bending over their drawings by the light of a single lamp, and so rapt in their employment that they dp not heed the stranger's entrance ; and when at last the venerable Peter Vischer is roused to a sense of hospitality, 1 Sandrart, " Teutsche Academie." PETER VISCHER. T] he has regretfully to explain that there is nothing in the house to offer the visitor, as his good Hausfrau and all his numerous children and grandchildren are out enjoying the holiday, leaving him at home to pursue his favourite studies in company with his loved brothers in art. As Peter Vischer and his five sons — Peter, Herman, Johann, Paul, and Jacob — played an important part in the art-development of Niirn berg, it will not, I trust, be considered irrelevant to my subject if I give a rather more detailed account of his life and work than I have hitherto done of those of his contemporaries. Not that Vischer's art was of a nobler or grander character than that of Adam Kraft, but because the hard-working Rothgiesser (brasier, or worker in bronze and copper), as he modestly styles himself, may serve as a sample of the sort of material out of which the Nurnberg workmen were formed. Meister Peter Vischer, according to the most authentic accounts, was born at Nurnberg about the year 1455, and belonged to a family that had already a certain reputation in bronze-work. Like most of the apprentices of his time, he appears to have enjoyed a few " Wander- jahre " abroad, before he settled down as a Meister in his native town ; at least Sandrart affirms that he studied in Rome; and his works certainly reveal a knowledge of the antique that he would scarcely have been able to gain had he stayed at home all his life. This knowledge of classic form did not, however, as with weaker artists, destroy the national tendency to the fantastic in Vischer's art ; it only added to the quaint Teutonic imagination a certain touch of grace and refinement such as we rarely meet with in any other Northern artist, except those who are tinged by that pseudo-Italian sentiment which undermined the noble originality of the Teutonic mind, and led eventually to its bringing forth bastard weaklings of Grecian and Roman parentage instead of the honest offspring of Northern thought and fancy. But Gothic art was as yet triumphant in Nurnberg at the beginning of the sixteenth century ; and well might it be triumphant, when it produced such works as the " Sacraments-Hauslein," and the " Shrine of St. Sebald," which, for richness of design, beauty of style, and delicacy of execution, rivalled the finest monuments of classic Rome. The Shrine of St. Sebald, the masterpiece of Vischer's art, was begun in the year 1 507, and was finished at last, as the inscription on it tells us, " by Peter Vischer and his five sons, to the glory of Almighty D ,8 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. God alone, and to the honour of St. Sebald, Prince of Heaven," in 15 19. For twelve years Peter Vischer and his five sons laboured incessantly on this grand tomb, which was designed to hold the bones of the holy St. Sebald, the apostle of the Nurnbergers, the messenger of heaven, who by his miracles had first converted their ancestors to the true faith, and who had remained the patron saint and loved benefactor of their town ever since. Peter Vischer was paid for this work, it appears, out of the alms of " pious contributors," at so much the hundredweight. There is an exact statement preserved of the various sums that he received at different times as his work progressed,1 and it is supposed that the hard-working Rothgiesser did not make at all a good bargain in the matter, and that the tomb was truly executed by him, as he declares, to the " glory of God alone, and honour of St. Sebald," rather than to his own profit. It is scarcely probable, indeed, that the alms of the pious, however incited by the promises of absolution that were held out from time to time by the Bishops of Bamberg to all who should assist in the work, would have been sufficient to pay six men for twelve years' labour out of their lives. Such work was never done in the modern Birmingham spirit of demand and supply. The bronze out of which the tomb was cast might perhaps be paid for at so much the hundredweight ; but the honest piety and artistic thought that these workmen infused into it are things impossible to pay for by voluntary contributions or otherwise. No description of this wonderful tomb 2 can convey any just idea of its luxuriant richness of workmanship. Every minutest portion of it is in itself a charming little work of art : genii, mermaids, lions, fabulous monsters, delightful little boys, and all sorts of strange creatures out of the realms of fancy, spring up at every turn ; even the platform itself on which the whole structure rests is supported by enormous snails, and the rich fretwork canopy is likewise fantastically ornamented. And when the eye gets tired of all this fantastic imagery, it has only to turn to the twelve noble figures of the Apostles that are placed on brackets against the slender pillars that support the canopy, to find entire rest and satis faction. The calm dignity and noble expression of these statues is indeed something remarkable for an early German master. It is what 1 Baader, " Beitrage zur Kunstgeschichte Niirnbergs." s A cast has recently been erected in the North Court of the South Kensington Museum. THE SHRINE OF ST. SEBALD. 19 Diirer only attained in the last years of his life, in his great paintings of the Four Apostles. Around the platform or pedestal on which the shrine is placed are bas-reliefs, representing the various miracles performed by the saint. Once perishing with cold, and finding no fuel in a cottage where he took refuge for the night, he placed an icicle on the fire instead of a fresh log, which immediately burnt as brightly as the best Wallsend coal. Another time he rescued a man who had doubted his inspiration as a prophet, from being swallowed alive by the earth, as a punishment for his unbelief. Turning tinker on another occasion, he mended a broken kettle for his host simply by blessing it. These and other marvellous deeds of the holy St. Sebald are all pictured by Peter Vischer on his tomb, the whole being cast in bronze with the most exquisite smoothness. Meister Peter Vischer, like Adam Kraft, has left us a statue of him self as a part of his work. It represents a man of middle life, wearing the ordinary working dress of a mason, with cap, leather apron, and a chisel in his hand, as a sign of his calling. This statue stands unob trusively in a niche facing the altar, whilst on the opposite side, facing the entrance to the church, there is a noble statue of St. Sebald. Peter Vischer, as I have said before, calls himself simply a Rothgiesser (brasier), and he even designates himself by that title on the St. Sebald tomb, laying no claim to its artistic conception. This has led some critics to suppose that he did not really design this magnificent work of art, but was simply employed to cast in bronze another man's con ceptions. Herr Heideloff indeed, a well-known German architect, who has restored with discriminating taste many of the ancient buildings in Nurnberg, goes so far as to assert1 that the whole credit ofthe designing of this tomb is due to Veit Stoss, an artist of whom I shall presently speak. This view, founded chiefly on the discovery of a five-foot design for the St. Sebald tomb, dated 1488— that is, several years before Vischer began his work — and signed with the monogram of Veit Stoss, has, however, been fiercely controverted by other writers,2 and there really appears no just ground for robbing the modest Meister of St. Sebald's tomb of the glory due to its conception, by supposing that, contrary to 1 In his " Ornamentik des Mittelalters." 2 Especially by Dobner in the " Kunstblatt" for 1847, No. 36. D 2 20 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. the usual practice of Nurnberg artificers, who mostly worked from their own designs, the greatest Rothgiesser amongst them was indebted to another man for his ideas and models. The few records that have been handed down to us of Peter Vischer's domestic life give us a pleasant idea of the grand old Nurnberg work man and his simple way of living. He and his wife and his five sons, with their wives and numerous children, all dwelt harmoniously together (Neudorfer tells us) under one roof, in a house near St. Catherine's Churchyard ; and he and his sons, all of whom followed their father's trade, might be seen any day working with their own hands in the Gieshiitten (foundries) belonging to Peter Vischer, where they were constantly visited by the Princes and Electors of Germany, and other potentates, none of whom ever thought of passing through Nurnberg without seeing the Gieshiitten of the celebrated Meister Rothgiesser. Peter Vischer died in 1529, one year later than Albrecht Diirer. He was buried in St. Rochus' Churchyard. Strange to say, there is no evidence of any friendship having subsisted between Peter Vischer and Albrecht Diirer, although they lived in the same town at the same time. It appears inconceivable that they should have been unknown to one another, and one writer has gone as far as to attribute to Durer's " proud avoidance of the leather apron," the absence of a friendship which would have seemed so natural. But it is more probable, that as they belonged to different guilds, they were not thrown much into each other's . society, and so had little opportunity of cultivating a personal friendship. There can be small doubt, however, that even if they were personally unacquainted, that they must yet have exercised some degree of influence over each other's art ; for no two great minds, living in daily sight of each other's works, can fail to be thus mutually modified. It would be pleasant, however, to know that Albrecht sometimes formed a fourth on those holiday evenings, when Kraft and Lindenast and Vischer used to meet together, and work at their designs. I have already mentioned the name of Veit Stoss,1 another Niirn berg workman, whose works fell within the same period of rich artistic development as those of Kraft, Vischer, and Diirer. 1 For the true history of Veit Stoss see Baader, " Beitrage zur Kunstgeschichte Niirnbergs." Several interesting particulars have recently been discovered respecting hini, which throw an entirely new colouring on his life. VEIT STOSS. 2 1 It has always hitherto been supposed that Stoss was a native of Cracow, in Poland, and only settled in Nurnberg at the end of the fif teenth century ; but it has recently been satisfactorily ascertained that he was really a born Niirnberger, who gave up his rights of citizenship in 1477, in order to be allowed to settle in Cracow, where some of his works are still to be seen. In 1496, however, he returned to Nurnberg, and paid three Rhenish florins for resuming his rights as a citizen. Veit Stoss is principally known to us by his marvellous wood- carvings; but Neudorfer and Sandrart tell us that he was not only a carver in wood, but was also a sculptor, a painter, and an engraver. Unfortunately, none of his paintings or sculptures are preserved, but there are several engravings in existence bearing his mark. Bartsch describes three. They are very rare. But his wood-carvings alone, which still adorn many of the churches and private dwellings in Nurnberg, are quite sufficient to reveal to us the extraordinary artistic skill of this Bildschnitzer (carver in wood), who, we are told, sculptured his figures so perfectly that they " only wanted speech to be alive." Veit Stoss, it is said, fell blind in his old age, and died in great poverty and misery in the hospital at Schwabach. Unfortunately the sentimental interest that has attached itself to his life, and the pretty pathetic stories that are told of the blind old artist, are very ill-founded, for I am sorry to say that this "pious and charitable" wood-carver is cha racterised in the town records as " an unquiet burgher, who has given an honourable Rath and the Common State much trouble,"1 and that we further find, that on St. Barbara's Day, in the year 1503, he was publicly branded on both cheeks with a hot iron by the town executioner as a forger. The proper punishment of his crime — a crime committed " in order to obtain possession of unrighteous wealth " (unrechtmdssigen Gutes) — was, according to the laws of Nurnberg, death ; but a " merciful Rath " graciously commuted this sentence to branding on the cheeks. Soon after being subjected to this public shame, Veit Stoss fled secretly from the town, although he had taken a solemn oath on being let out of prison not to do so, and the Rath had " much trouble," and had to make terms with him and his son-in-law Georg Trummer (who had likewise escaped from its fatherly care) before he would come back again and consent to four weeks' imprisonment as an acknowledgment 1 Baader, " Beitrage zur Kunstgeschichte Niirnbergs." 22 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. of his perjury. At last, however, this was accomplished, and Stoss appears once more to have returned to his native town, and, in spite of the ugly marks on his cheek, to have regained much of his former trade. He was truly too valuable a workman to be despised by those who required noble works of art. But although the Emperor Maximilian took him into his service, and employed him on several works, his relations with his art-companions appear to have been anything but pleasant. They refused, indeed, to work with or for him, so prejudiced were they in favour of honest men, and he consequently had the greatest difficulty in getting his orders executed. The Rath, to which he made a formal complaint on this subject in 1508, refused to force the workmen of Nurnberg to enter into his service, although it did not prohibit them from doing so. It granted him, however, protection from any ill-usage he might receive at the hands of the masters and apprentices of the different guilds, and altogether seems to have behaved very fairly towards its clever but troublesome child, who remained an "unquiet burgher" to the end of his days, constantly entering into lawsuits, and petitioning the Rath against one or other of his fellow-citizens. He died in 1533, a very old man. The noble crucifix in St. Sebald's, and the curious wood-carving of the " Salutation of the Angel " (Engelische Gruss) in the church of St. Lawrence, are his greatest works in Niirnberg, but many other carvings by him are scattered about in various private houses and churches, and many more are attributed to him ; indeed, as a rule, every wood-carved altar-piece in Nurnberg is said to be by Veit Stoss, and the paintings on its wings by Wohlgemuth. We are told, as an instance of the life-like appearance of his statues, that when two figures of Adam and Eve, that he had executed for the King of Portugal, were unpacked from their cases, " the king started back from them in horror, thinking they were alive." He appears to have painted his carved figures in oil-colours, and to have enriched them with gold. Besides these three great artists, Adam Kraft, Peter Vischer, and Veit Stoss, whom I have selected as illustrating the growth of plastic art in Nurnberg in the fifteenth century, there were numberless other artist-workmen of lesser fame, who were likewise moved by the spirit of the time to do work of noble note, that might have been left undone, or have been done in a dishonest manner, in a less stirring age. But the limits of this chapter will not allow me to speak of the good old OTHER NURNBERG WORTHIES. 23 Hans Beheim, the elder, "stone-mason on the Pegnitz, an honourable, pious, and God-fearing man, who was friendly to everybody, particularly to the working people, and was beloved by an honourable Rath, and the whole Common State ;" nor of Hanns Glockengiesser, who cast the great fire-bell, weighing over forty hundredweight, a wonder in its day j1 nor Georg Hensz, " who made the astronomical clock with the seven crown princes in the Frauenkirche," and Hanns Bullman, who, " although not very clever in reading and writing, was very learned in astronomy, and was the first to set the Theoria Planetarum in motion by clockwork." The history of these, and all the other worthies of Nurnberg, the reader may find, if he desires, in the little volume of Neudorfer's " Nachrichten," which contains the simple and genuine expression of an old Niirnberger's admiration for his fellow-citizens. His facts, it must be admitted, are not always very correct ; but the substantial truth of his narrative remains as unimpeached as that of dear old Vasari, who likewise was apt to confuse dates, places, and facts, but who yet has given us a more truthftd, as well as a more vivid picture of the artist- life of Italy than the modern art-biographer; for however conscien tiously the latter may have sought in registers and town-records for the verification of his assertions, he is generally unable to give those little life-like touches to his subject which form the charm of such histories as those of Vasari and Neudorfer. Of the early painters of Nurnberg I have purposely said nothing as yet. There were, indeed, none of any general celebrity prior to Michael Wohlgemuth, whom I propose to consider hereafter as the master of Albrecht Diirer, and such as there were do not betray in their works any of that freedom of thought and fancy which so strikingly characterises the plastic art of this period, and which, as I have endeavoured to show, forms the distinguishing feature of the German art in the fifteenth century in Nurnberg. 1 On this bell was written — " Die Tagemess und Feuerglocken heisst man mich, Hanns Glockengiesser goss mich, Zu Gottes Dienst und Ehr gehor ich." " I am called the mass and the fire bell : Hanns Glockengiesser cast me : I sound to God's service and honour." 24 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. But I must not forget to allude to the celebrated Hans Sachs, the cobbler poet of Nurnberg, who is said to have done as much for the Reformation by his songs and satires as Luther and the other Reformers by their preaching. Such a man as this, although perhaps he exercised no direct influence on the growth of art in his native town, must yet have had a considerable indirect share in the formation of its peculiar character. A poet who composed and wrote with his own hand, as Hans Sachs tells us he did, "four thousand two hundred master-songs ; two hundred and eight comedies, tragedies, and farces; one thousand and seven fables, tales, and miscellaneous poems, and seventy-three devotional and love-songs," can scarcely fail, considering that these songs and satires were in the mouths of all the people of Germany, to have materially affected the thoughts and opinions of his fellow-townsmen. Of these, none would be more likely to acknowledge the poet's influence than the artist- workmen who formed such a large portion of the population of Niirn berg, and who, as they sang his songs over their work, could scarcely have helped infusing into it some of the ideas they had gained from his teaching. For, as I have said before, the workman of Nurnberg was not obliged to copy set models with undeviating exactness, but was free to express his own mind in the stone or wood he was carving. The vigorous but coarse humour of the master-singer of Nurnberg is indeed distinctly traceable in some of the art-productions of his time, and I imagine that he is answerable for many of those rough pictorial libels against the Romish clergy, which, as well as in the printed form, occur so frequently in the sixteenth century. Hans Sachs, indeed, contributed largely to foster the growth in Nurnberg of that radical spirit of progress which is regarded by many with such alarm, in its present manifestation, in our English manufac turing towns. Notwithstanding the restrictive and sometimes oppres sive government of a paternal Rath, and the exclusive and protective policy of the various guilds and corporations of artisans, a free and independent spirit dwelt in those old burghers and workmen which caused them to be amongst the first to cast off the chains wherewith the Church of Rome sought to bind the inquiring intellect of her children, and led to Nurnberg being the first free imperial town of Germany that declared for Luther and the Reformation. Before concluding this chapter, I must remind the reader of one MARTIN BEHAIM. 25 other Nurnberg worthy who contributed not a little to the growth of knowledge in the fifteenth century. Although the fame of Martin Behaim, burgher of Nurnberg, has been eclipsed by that of Christopher Columbus, it appears tolerably certain that this same burgher, who sailed through the Magellan Straits in 1485, and discovered Brazil, was the first European navigator who crossed the Pacific Ocean, and touched the New World of America. Martin Behaim likewise, who was not only a sailor but a geometrician and geographer, made the first terrestrial globe that was ever seen, thereby doing inestimable service to all who followed in his wake across the unknown ocean. This globe, or at all events one made about this period, is still preserved in the old Town Library at Nurnberg, one among many memorials of that spirit of invention and progress which brought forth so many valuable results in the Nurnberg of the Middle Ages. =J8_i- PART I. FROM INFANCY TO MANHOOD. E 2 CHAPTER I. PARENTAGE, BIRTH, AND EARLY YEARS. "-There was born here, once more, a Mighty Man." Carlyle. It happened on St. Eligius' day (25th of June), in the year of our Lord 1455, that a young working goldsmith entered the gates of Niirn berg, with the hope of finding em ployment with one of the far-famed master goldsmiths of that busy town. He had come originally from a village named Eytas in Hungary, where his ancestors had for many generations tended horses and cattle.1 Some time before his birth, however, his father had renounced this patriarchal calling, and had set up in Jula as a goldsmith. The son adopted his father's trade, and, in the years before we find him at the gates of Nurnberg, had lived among the great artists of the Nether lands learning the goldsmith's craft. 1 It has been a disputed point whether Albrecht Diirer was of German or Hungarian descent. The name of Diirer is undoubtedly German, but Albrecht Diirer himself tells us that his father was born of a race of herdsmen in Hungary. Von Eye surmises from the name of the village, Eytas, which in the Hungarian language signifies a settlement, that the Diirer family, with other families of German origin, had probably settled there at an early period. 30 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. When he entered the town he found that it wore an unusually idle and festal appearance. The clang of labour had ceased for a time, the workshops were all deserted. It was not long before he learnt that the reason of this unwonted idleness was that Philip Pirkheimer, son of one of the richest and noblest patrician families of Nurnberg, was celebrating his wedding feast, and that the sons and daughters of Nurnberg, dressed in holiday array, had left their customary occupa tions to take part in the great dance that was going on under the old Linden-tree in the court of the Reichsveste, a tree which, according to tradition, had been planted by the hand of Queen Kunigund.1 Albrecht Diirer the Elder, for such was the name of the traveller (the distinguishing appellation of " the Elder" having been bestowed on him in after-times by his more celebrated son), could have had small chance of finding work on such a gala-day as this ; and we may well imagine that, although he had not on a wedding garment, but clothes all soiled and dusty with his long journey, he yet lingered a while to watch the gay proceedings and merry dancing going on in the shade of the patriarchal Linden. But little could he have dreamed, as he watched the German maidens in their long-peaked shoes, high towering head-dresses, and sweeping trains, flitting by him in the dance, and the proud dames and noble Raths-herrn, who contemplated the animated scene with pleased pride, that the name of the great Pirk heimer family, in whose honour all these gay guests were assembled, would in after-years be inseparably associated with his own ; and as little thought those fat burghers and their wives, and those earnest, thoughtful- looking workmen, who jostled one another to get a good view of the dancing, that the arrival of that unknown artisan, who had suddenly appeared amongst them, was an event of greater consequence to their town than even the marriage of the noble heir of the Pirkheimers. Yet such it was destined to be. Whether Albrecht Durer the Elder found the employment he desired immediately on his arrival in Nurnberg, or whether he had to wait some time seeking for work, is not certain, but before very long, at all events, he entered the service of Hieronymus Haller, a well- known master goldsmith in the town, whom he served, as his son tells us in the short record2 from which these details are drawn, for 1 This tree, which was reckoned old in Diirer the Elder's time, is still standing. 2 This brief family history, if such it may be called, docs not appear to have been ALBRECHT DURER THE ELDER. 31 "a tolerably long period, until the year 1467," — that is to say, for twelve years, after which time he received, as a fitting reward for his long service, the rank of master goldsmith in the town, and also the hand of the youthful Barbara Hallerin, his master's daughter, in marriage. " My mother," says Albrecht Durer, " was a beautiful and virtuous maiden," but we cannot suppose that it was from any romantic attachment to her that Albrecht Diirer the Elder stayed so long with her father, for she was only fifteen years old at the time of her marriage, and must therefore have been a child of three when her bridegroom, who was a man of forty when he married, first came to Nurnberg. Their marriage took place " eight days before St. Vitus '' (7th of June), in 1467. "It must also be recorded," writes Diirer, "that my grand mother, my mother's mother, was the daughter of the CEllingers of Wissembourg, and was named Kunigund." This marriage was abundantly — it would not perhaps be far wrong to say superabundantly — blessed with children. Not less than eighteen births are recorded in the exact family register kept by the elder Albrecht Diirer, and piously preserved by his son, who " sets down everything as his father wrote it in his book, word for word." The first entry in this register states : — " 1. Item. In the year 1468 after the birth of Christ, on the evening of St. Margaret's day, at the sixth hour, my wife Barbara was delivered of my first daughter. The godmother was the old Margaret of Wissembourg put together by Durer with any idea of helping his future biographers, the motive that usually gives rise to such works, but it seems to have been undertaken simply in a spirit of pious reverence for the memory of his father and the other members of his family, whose deaths he records in few words, but with exact details of the time and conditions under which they happened. He begins his narrative in these words : — " I, Albrecht D'itrer the Younger, have collected from my father's writings from whence he was descended, how he came hither, and remained and ended blessedly. God be gracious to him and us. Amen!' For the whole of this narrative see " Reliquien von Albrecht Diirer," first fully col lected and published by the patriotic Dr. Friedrich Campe in 1828. This little volume that Dr. Campe has dedicated " to all those who honour Diirer " is of the greatest in terest, for it contains all Durer's personal writings, his letters to Pirkheimer, his business correspondence with Haller, and the journal he kept during his tour in the Netherlands, &c. The letters and journal had certainly been published before in Von Murr's "Journal zur Kunstgeschichte, 1775 — 1788," but there they were inconveniently scattered in different volumes of the journal, whereas in Campe's edition they appear in a complete form. Most of my translations are from Campe, the Pirkheimer correspond ence only being translated from Von Murr, collated with Campe. 3_ LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. [probably the grandmother of the child], and she named the child Barbara after its mother. " 2. Item. In the year 1470 after Christ, on the day of St. Mary in Lent, two hours before daybreak, my wife was delivered of a second child, a son. His godfather was Fritz Koth of Bayreuth. He named my son Johannes." But it is the third entry in this long registry of births that is alone of significance to us. This says that in "the year 1471 after Christ, on St. Prudentia's day, at the sixth hour [that is, according to our reckoning, at eleven o'clock A.M. on the 21st of May], on a Tuesday,1 my wife was delivered of a second son. His godfather was Antonius Koberger.2 He was called Albrecht after me." Thus, with no greater distinction than the rest of his seventeen brothers and sisters, is the birth of the great German artist announced. Few of these numerous children, each of whose births is recorded with the same exactitude and almost in the same words, lived to be men or women ; most of them died quite young, and at the time when Albrecht Diirer copied this history of their respective births from his father's papers, there were, he tells us, but three brothers living of the whole family, namely, himself, his brother Andreas, who became like his father a goldsmith in Nurnberg, and Hans Diirer, who, eighteen years younger than Albrecht, was his pupil in Art. He was after wards made court-painter to the King of Poland. The good father appears to have had a hard struggle to win bread for his young wife and increasing family ; for although he was now a master goldsmith in Nurnberg, yet it was only " with great toil and con stant hard work " that he could supply the daily wants of his household. The wearing anxiety of a hand-to-mouth existence, and the necessity for increasing labour, seem indeed to have pressed somewhat heavily on the elder Diirer, and this, no doubt, brought that earnest and careworn expres sion into his face that we notice in his portrait by his son. He looks in this portrait, taken in the year 1497, like a man who had had a hard fight 1 Dr. Campe reads "on a Friday (Freytag)," but Von Eye, in the appendix to the second edition of his " Leben und Wirken Albrecht Durer's," points out that this is a mistake, for that St. Prudentia's day fell on a Tuesday in that year, and that Campe had probably misread Freytag or Eritag, an old expression for Dienstag (Tuesday). 2 The celebrated book printer of Nurnberg. The "Niirnberg Chronicle" was printed by him in 1493. ALBRECHT DURER THE ELDER. 33 with the world, and who had accustomed himself to walk in the stony path of duty, rather than in the softer ways of pleasure, and we can well understand that he was " little inclined to worldly pleasure ; a man of few words, and who went seldom into company, and was a God-fearing man." A God-fearing man, somewhat after the type of our English Puritans, who also had little taste for the sweets of life, but concerned themselves chiefly with its eternal interests. Yet Albrecht Diirer the Elder was by no means morose or self-centred, but on the contrary " had good praise from every one that knew him, for he led an honourable Christian life, was a patient and gentle man, peacefully inclined towards everybody, and very thankful to God." His daily speech to his children was "that they should love God and do rightly towards their neighbours," and in these high duties he seems to have set them a noble example. Thus we may conclude that, although the good father's life was disturbed by " many troubles, vexations, and disappointments," it still contained many secret sources of peace and joy ; indeed, the fire that beams forth from the eyes of the seventy-years'-old man in his son's portrait of him, proves that his anxieties and troubles had not been able to crush his spirit or undermine the sure foundation on which he rested his hopes. We have unfortunately no authentic portrait of Durer's mother,1 nor has her son, in spite of the love and reverence he always showed her, left us any written description of her character and mode of life, like that he has given us of his father. He tells us, certainly, that at the time of her early marriage she was " a beautiful and virtuous maiden," but he does not give us any picture of the overburdened young mother, whose children came and went with such sorrowful rapidity. The births and deaths of children seem, indeed, for a long course of years to have formed the only incidents in the monotony of the Diirer household. The house inhabited by his parents at the time of Albrecht's birth was situated in the Winkler Strasse, behind the great Pirkheimer mansion. It was a dwelling of some importance for a man of the rank of the elder Diirer, and proves that at the time that his third child was 1 Karel van Mander affirms that in 1604 there was a portrait of Durer's mother in the Rathhaus at Nurnberg. Other writers also mention it, but it is not known what has become of it. There is, however, a drawing, supposed to represent Barbara Hallerin, in the British Museum. F 34 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. born at all events he could not have been in very straitened circum stances. The fact also that he was able to ask Antonius Koberger, who was a man of considerable importance in Nurnberg, to stand god father to his son, shows that the master goldsmith must have held an honourable position in the town of his adoption, and that he must have been acquainted with some of its most distinguished inhabitants. The house in the Winkler Strasse seems to have formed a part of the general Pirkheimer building, for it is called by Germans the Pirkheimer Hinterhaus (back-house) ; it was rented by the elder Diirer from the Pirkheimer family, so that even before the birth of the two children whose names were destined to be handed down together to posterity, some sort of a connexion must have existed between their parents. Albrecht Diirer the artist was, as we have already learnt, born on the 2 ist of May, 1471, in the Hinterhaus of the Pirkheimers. Six months before this event Willibald Pirkheimer, the statesman, savant, reformer, and soldier, but who is now principally known to the world as the friend of Albrecht Diirer, first saw the light of the fifteenth century. The two children, in spite of the difference of rank of their parents, which at that time usually formed a wider separation between classes than it even does at the present, grew up together under much the same influences, and already, before either of them had reached the age of five years, they were happy companions in their childish joys and sports. When Albrecht was five years old his father moved from the Pirk heimer Hinterhaus to a house at the foot of the castle hill, but this change of residence does not seem to have materially affected the intercourse of the two boys, who continued to meet together in their play-time, although they were necessarily separated in their studies, the school-instruction given to Willibald being carried to a far greater extent than that accorded to Albrecht. Yet Albrecht also had the advantage of being very well instructed for an artisan's son of that period, and his friendship with Willibald no doubt inspired him with a respect and love for learning that he might not otherwise have gained. "Especially," he tells us with grateful pride, "had my father a pleasure in me, because he said that I was diligent in trying to learn." On this account, probably, his father sent him at an early age to school,— most likely to the St. Sebald parochial school in the ED UCA TION IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTUR Y. 3 5 neighbourhood, — and here he acquired his first knowledge of reading and writing, a knowledge that was not gained in those times without much more difficulty than the youths of our day have to experience. For we must remember that in the fifteenth century printed books were still expensive luxuries, far too valuable to be entrusted to school boys, and our young Albrecht had therefore to learn his lessons without their aid. Dr. von Eye has described the ordinary mode in which instruction was imparted to the schoolboys of the fifteenth century in Germany in vivid terms, and I cannot do better than quote his words concerning the sort of school education that Albrecht probably received. " Let us look," he says, " at the boy Albrecht, in his low-girdled tunic, going on his way towards the school. At his side hangs a little slate with a slate-pencil attached to it, or perhaps a small board spread over with a layer of wax ; but that is his only apparatus. With this everything must be learnt. The schoolroom is a half-dark room, with bare, dusty walls. A desk stands at one side, made out of thick oak planks roughly joined together, and above it, against the wall, hangs a black-painted board. The remaining space is taken up by narrow benches, hardly half a foot in height ; on these the various, not too cleanly-combed scholars are ranged. A panting form mounts the seat, armed with nothing more than a heavy stick or rod. After the noise is still, the lean schoolmaster writes a letter on the black-board, names it, and the zealous scholars scream it out after him. The teacher then admonishes them to copy the letter that he has given them on the black-board, and again to name it. Those who are clever or industrious do this. From letters they pass on to syllables and words, and finally to sentences, and in this way attain a knowledge of reading and writing." J Thus was the schoolmaster abroad in Nurnberg in Albrecht Durer's youth ! But in spite of the difficulties in the path of learning, a great desire for knowledge seems in the fifteenth century to have laid hold of the German people. Free Latin schools were established in many towns, and " poor scholars," as they were called, rushed to these from all parts of Germany with an eager thirst for the new learning, often begging their bread from door to door, and undergoing incredible hard ships, in order to be able to prosecute their Latin studies without interruption. 1 " Leben und Wirken Albrecht Diirer's," p. 11. F 2 36 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. Albrecht Diirer, however, had not, like his great contemporary Martin Luther, to suffer the misery and ill-usage incident to the life of a poor scholar. He appears to have lived comfortably at home under his father's roof, receiving his father's wise admonitions and instruction, as well as the more regular teaching of the town schoolmaster. The first of Albrecht Durer's numerous portraits of himself occurs at this period, and enables us to judge what the Nurnberg schoolboy was personally like in his thirteenth year. This drawing x is most interesting, not only as being the first work that we possess by his hand, but also as proving that he must already in his boyhood have had a considerable knowledge of drawing. It represents a handsome, yet thoughtful, boyish countenance, in which we distinctly trace the noble features and expression of the later Diirer portraits, and in which, in spite of its imperfect execution, a certain tenderness or melancholy of soul makes itself vaguely felt. The large soft eyes, although incorrectly drawn, gaze out at us with a touching and solemn expression, and we cannot help wondering, as we look at the rough boyish sketch, what thoughts were rising in the young heart when it was made. The head in this drawing is covered with a curious-shaped cloth cap, from beneath which the long hair, as in the later portraits, falls down over the neck and shoulders, but is cut. straight across the forehead. The face forms a soft oval, from which the well-formed nose already stands out in a prominent manner; the eyebrows are slightly arched, and the full childish lips pout out as if waiting to be kissed. The dress is a loose jacket with wide sleeves, open in front, and showing the bare throat ; one hand only is seen, and this has evidently been drawn, not, like the face, " from the looking-glass," but from some preconceived idea of a hand, probably gained from one of the old Byzantine pictures that the youthful artist had no doubt observed and studied in the churches ; for the long ugly fingers look more as if they belonged to a lean, ascetic saint than to a joyous young schoolboy. For the rest, this drawing bears the direct impress of a true portrait; for although it is" weak and faulty in design, it yet presents us with what many portrait-painters are unable to give, a real personality. Diirer himself seems to have preserved this early portrait; and esteeming it, perhaps, as a relic of happy childhood, he wrote under 1 Now in the Albert Collection at Vienna. EARL Y DRA WINGS. 3 7 it in after-years these words: — "This I have drawn from myself from the looking-glass in the year 1484, when I was still a child. — ALBRECHT DtiRER." Possibly also he may have had some dim suspicion . that this early portrait would some day be of interest to mankind. Another drawing of this early period of youth is in the British Museum. It is a light chalk drawing, on white paper, of a woman with a bird in her left hand. On one side it bears an inscription in old German, written, it would seem, by its first possessor, saying : — " This was drawn for me by Albrecht Diirer, before he became a painter, in Wohlgemuth' s house, on the tipper floor of the back house, in the presence of Cunrat Comazens." This accidentally preserved inscription on the little sketch reveals to us in some measure the employment of Albrecht's leisure hours. Like all boy-artists, he no doubt delighted in making sketches of all that struck his fancy, and his schoolfellows and companions were probably enriched with many specimens of his early powers. But the portrait of himself and this little drawing, preserved most likely by some young Niirnberger with an early-developed taste for hoarding, are about the only remains of his boyish productions that, so far as I know, have escaped destruction. There is mention made, certainly, of a drawing of three heads, done when he was eleven years old, which formerly formed part of the Imhof Collection ; but this does not seem to be any longer in existence.1 This early taste for drawing must have been a great source of enjoyment and employment in the boy's home life. The constant deaths of children, and the anxiety that seems to have weighed so heavily on the good father, could scarcely have failed to have cast continual shadows over the Diirer household, and our young Albrecht must thus have become acquainted with grief at a very early age ; indeed, the large melancholy eyes in the portrait, when he was " still a child," seem to tell us that he had already looked upon earth's pain and sorrow, and had learnt something of that great mystery of death which lies dimly apparent as the deepest meaning of so many of his greatest works. But although saddened at times by the loss of his brother and 1 In the catalogue of the Posonyi Collection, sold in 1867, there is mentioned a drawing by Diirer of a Virgin and Child, dated 1485. 38 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. sister playfellows, Albrecht's young life must yet have held many plea sant springs of delight. Amongst these may be reckoned his inter course with his friend Willibald Pirkheimer, an intercourse which must have exerted a moulding influence on his growing thoughts, and very probably shaped to some extent his whole future life. The Pirkheimer family was, as I have already said, one of the most considerable of the patrician families in Nurnberg. It dated back for many generations, and its members always held important positions in the town and state. Added to this, commerce had brought it unbounded wealth, and in the time of Albrecht's youth the great house of Pirkheimer was renowned half over Germany. Johann Pirk heimer, the father of Willibald, appears to have been a man of highly- cultivated intellect, who spared no pains to give his son the most learned education that the age could bestow. Some crumbs of the knowledge acquired under learned teachers by the great Willibald fell, no doubt, to the share of his chosen friend, who was ever hungry to learn, and must have digested much more mental food than could have been supplied to him from the somewhat limited storehouse of the town-school. His visits to the Pirkheimer mansion also could hardly have failed, even at this time (as undoubtedly they did in later life), to have given a higher tone to his tastes, and to have opened to his view a wider sphere of intellectual pleasure, and a more refined mode of life than that with which he was acquainted in his father's dwelling. Such were the more immediate influences acting on the boy's stirring soul, and prompting it ever to higher flights ; but, added to these, there was the constant influence of the active town life into which he was born, which could not fail to have a great share in fashioning the character and awakening the activities of the master goldsmith's thoughtful young son. Indeed, the noble development of the arts of design that was going on at this time in Nurnberg may reasonably be regarded as having given that peculiar bent to Durer's genius that made him an artist. Born in another place and at another time he might have been a great poet, a great philosopher, or a great teacher of religion, for all these capabilities lay within him ; but born in Niirn berg, in the fifteenth century, he was destined to become the great artist of Germany. - CHAPTER II. YEARS OF APPRENTICESHIP AND TRAVEL. (Lehr und Wander- Jahre) " The Youth, who daily farther from the East Must travel, still is Nature's Priest, And by the vision splendid Is on his way attended." Wordsworth. "And when I had learnt reading and writing," says Diirer, "my father took me from school, and taught me the goldsmith's work." This is all that he tells about the time that he worked under his father as a goldsmith ; and we have no certain record of any work done by him at this period, although it is supposed by some that a beautiful silver piece representing the Seven Falls of Christ was exe cuted by him when in his father's workshop. It is stated by Neudorfer and several of Durer's early biographers, that it was old Durer's intention to place his son under the great Colmar painter, Martin Schongauer, for instruction, but that the death of this master hindered this design from being carried into execution. But good old Neudorfer appears to have made some blunder on this point. He did not write his " Nachrichten " until the year 1547, long after all the events he records had occurred, and probably the old man's memory often failed him in exact dates and statements of facts. Certain it is, at all events, that Martin Schongauer's death could not have been the reason why Albrecht did not become his pupil; for although the precise time of the death of this master is still somewhat uncertain, it has been distinctly proved that he lived beyond the year 1484, when Albrecht was thirteen years old, and when, according to Neudorfer, his father conceived the idea of sending him to Colmar. 4o LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. In spite of this discrepancy in Neudorfer's narrative, he has, however, been followed by many subsequent writers, some of whom even go so far as to state not only that it was intended that Albrecht should be Martin Schongauer's pupil, but that he really studied under him at Colmar. Deschamps and several other art biographers especially mention Schon gauer as Albrecht Durer's first master. It is therefore necessary to state distinctly that Albrecht was never, in the ordinary sense of the term, a pupil of Schongauer ; nor does it appear that he ever even saw Hiipsch Martin,1 as he was called, although there seems no reason to doubt Neudorfer's further statement that he afterwards, during his Wander- jahre, became acquainted with Schongauer's three brothers at Colmar. Diirer himself says nothing of his father's intention of placing him with Schongauer. This of itself would not prove much, for his state ments regarding himself are confined to bare records of events, related in the simplest and fewest possible words ; and besides, as he was only a boy of thirteen at the time, he might not have been consulted about the matter ; but from his father's evident desire that Albrecht should follow his own profession, and from other circumstances connected with the case, there seems no reason, in face of Neudorfer's evident inaccuracy, to doubt Albrecht's own simple declaration, that when he had learnt reading and writing his father took him from school and taught him the goldsmith's work, having no thought at that time of his becoming a painter. The precise date at which he left school and began his work as a goldsmith has not been ascertained, but it most probably was, as Neudorfer affirms, when he was thirteen years old ; for he must have continued some time under his father's tuition to have learnt to "work tolerably well " (sauberlich arbeiten), as he tells us he had done before he was apprenticed in i486 to Michael Wohlgemuth. These two years — namely, from the age of thirteen to that of fifteen — we may therefore conclude were spent by Albrecht in his father's workshop, and they could scarcely have failed to have given to the young goldsmith a greater knowledge of art and a surer mode of expression, though he had already, as we have seen, gained sufficient knowledge of 1 An English writer on Diirer has made a curious mistake concerning his first master. Finding out that it was an error to suppose that he studied under Schongauer, he seeks to correct it by stating that Hiipsch Martin (Handsome Martin) was really his master ; they being in fact the same person. APPRENTICED TO MICHAEL WOHLGEMUTH. 4I drawing to be able to execute from the looking-glass a characteristic portrait of himself. Albrecht Diirer the Elder was, his son records, an " ingenious (kunstlichen) man ; " and that he was highly esteemed in his profession is proved by the fact that he was appointed in 1494 by the Rath to test the silver and gold work submitted to the Company of Goldsmiths for approval during the temporary absence on travel of the Master Goldsmith, to whom the office properly belonged.1 The pro bability is that Albrecht could have had few better instructors in the arts of modelling and design than his father, and that he profited by his instructions is clearly seen in the few plastic works which he after wards executed with such minute accuracy and delicacy of touch. But Albrecht Diirer, as we know, was not destined to be a goldsmith in Nurnberg. A far wider domain was needed for the free expression of his great genius ; and already, in his fifteenth year, we find that his wish was strong to become a painter. " My inclination," he says, " carried me more towards painting than to the goldsmith work." His father seems at first to have been somewhat opposed to this inclination. He repented the time the boy had lost, as he considered it, in learning the goldsmith's work ; and perhaps the grave and over burdened old man desired to keep his noble-hearted and richly-gifted young son by his side to cheer his declining years, and enliven by his loving smiles and handsome face the sad household from which so many bright young lives had already passed away. We can indeed well under stand that a father must have had a " particular pleasure " in such a son, not only because he was " diligent in trying to learn," but also because of the pure heart and mind that the Man Diirer possessed, and which must, if the child be father to the man, have already been manifest to the loving eyes of a father and mother in the Boy Albrecht. But whatever struggle it cost him, the elder Diirer was too wise a father long to oppose his son's fixed inclination towards painting; and having once given in to his wish, he did all in his power to further its accomplishment. With this view, "in i486, on St. Andrew's day," Albrecht was bound apprentice by his father to Michael Wohlgemuth " to serve him for three years," the ordinary term of apprenticeship at that period. Thus his true vocation in life was finally and happily determined. Not in high words, not in heroic deeds, but in thoughtful and noble 1 Baader, " Beitrage zur Kunstgeschichte Nurnbergs." G 42 UFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. pictures he was to find a fitting expression for the longings, the strivings, the deep thoughts, the vague melancholy, the light and the darkness of his soul. And now, whilst Michael Wohlgemuth's new apprentice is learning to rub colours, to wash palettes, and to perform other similar offices in his master's workshop, let us consider for a few minutes the position which that master occupied in the art-history of his country, and the influence his teaching was likely to exert on his young pupil. Michael Wohlgemuth, born in 1434, is believed by Lord Lindsay to have derived his descent as an artist either directly or indirectly from Cologne. By other writers on art he is placed in a similar middle position between the school of Cologne and that of the Van Eycks that was occupied by the Cologne master formerly known by the name of Israel van Meckenen, but now usually designated the Master of the Lyversberg Passion. But although Michael Wohlgemuth must un doubtedly be classed amongst the early religious painters of Germany, he attained, at all events in his later works, to a far greater freedom of expression than that reached by the early artists of Cologne. His works, or rather those that pass with his name, are very un equal in merit — coarse daubs and finely-executed works of art having equally proceeded from his workshop ; yet there are not wanting indications that the Nurnberg spirit of progress in art had revealed itself to the mind of the master of Albrecht Diirer, and that he conscientiously strove after a greater originality of idea and a less conventional mode of expression than were exhibited in the works of his predecessors in the Franconian and Cologne schools. Martin Schongauer (or Schon, as he is more frequently called) and Michael Wohlgemuth stand, indeed, at an important transition period in Germany. They are the last of the old and the first of the new school of German art. They still, it is true, adhered with faithful hearts to the old forms of belief, and piously sought to interpret to the people in pictorial shape the doctrines and belief of the Church of Rome ; but in spite of their unquestioning obedience to the voice of St. Peter, the germ of a new idea was already working in their art ; and in the works of Martin Schongauer especially, mingled with their pure Catholic devotion, we constantly perceive the cropping up of that strange new growth of freedom and reform which was destined to reach its real significance and noblest height in art in the works of Albrecht Diirer. MARTIN SCHONGA UER'S INFL UENCE. 43 This is certainly less perceptible in the works of Wohlgemuth than in those of Schongauer, and I very much doubt whether Albrecht gained much from his master beyond a mere technical knowledge of painting. For unfortunately Michael Wohlgemuth seems in general to have considered art less as a high vocation than as a trade — a means of gaining money ; and he was content to execute, or to let his apprentices execute for him, whatever commissions came in his way — orders for altar-pieces, painted chests, carved and coloured figures, designs for the " Nurnberg Chronicle," as well as endless Virgins, Babes, and Saints — without troubling too much about the meaning he infused into them. Only now and then does he rise to true dignity of thought and feeling ; but in those few works of his in which these qualities, united with a great sweetness and simplicity of expression, are apparent, we are able to recognise that he was not altogether unworthy to be the master of so great a pupil. That pupil had, however, but little need of leading-strings. Martin Schongauer's influence is more clearly perceptible in Albrecht Durer's early works than Wohlgemuth's. This, no doubt, has strengthened the popular belief that Albrecht was at one time a pupil of that master ; but although, as we have seen, this idea rests on too slight a foundation to be entertained, there is no reason to doubt that a knowledge of his works contributed in some degree to the development of Albrecht's genius. That strange weird element that gives such a peculiar character to almost all of Durer's works, is likewise to be found in many of Schongauer's. The fantastic spirit of German art, which had been kept down as a relic of heathendom by the masters of the Cologne school, breaks forth unrestrainedly in several of Schongauer's engravings ; witness the celebrated one of St. Anthony tormented by demons, which Michael Angelo is said to have copied ; and these engravings were doubtless known to Albrecht at an early period, and could scarcely have failed to have attracted his attention and admiration. It is not surprising, therefore, that the art of Martin Schongauer, the greatest that Germany had as yet produced, should have exercised a slight directing influence over that of Albrecht Durer; it is only re markable indeed to find how small that influence really was, for an artist imbued with such great powers as Martin Schongauer possessed might well have been followed with too exclusive veneration by an G 2 44 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. enthusiastic young artist endowed with less original genius than Albrecht ; indeed, even in his case, it is perhaps fortunate that he was not thrown into more direct contact with the Colmar master, for an education in Wohlgemuth's manufactory of pictures (for such this master's school in Nurnberg seems to have been) was probably a far wiser training for his genius than if it had been directed in its first budding capabilities by any great master-mind. Albrecht Diirer, in all his works, even in the few that have been preserved of his youthful productions, is ever Albrecht Diirer der Einzige, the only one. He stands alone in his art, and it is strange to find how very little he owed to any master. Even the great Netherland brothers could only teach him the vivid language of painting ; he had his own thoughts to express in that language — thoughts widely different from the holy meditations of the Van Eycks — and he could not always wait to set them forth in the glowing love liness of colour, but must cut them on blocks or engrave them on copper as he was able. But the three Lehr-jahre spent in Wohlgemuth's service were no doubt a useful preparation for Albrecht's after-work. He learnt during these years the whole technical process of painting, of which he was before entirely ignorant ; the art of mixing and laying on his colours; and something of the chemical nature of the pigments employed, a knowledge which was then of essential importance to a painter, as most artists at that time prepared their colours themselves, and did not get them ready ground from the colourman,— a procedure that has, no doubt, contributed to the wonderful state of preservation in which we find many of their works at the present day. He gained besides a certain facility of execution, and became acquainted with many useful mechanical processes ; but for the rest his mind was wisely left alone during its youthful growing time, and it took its own natural form unrestrained by the pernicious imitation usually prevalent in a school. "In time God gave me industry," says Albrecht, "that I learnt well." This is all he tells us concerning his Lehr-jahre, except that he "had much to suffer" from his fellow-apprentices ; and, considering the love of tormenting inherent in the boyish character, and the greater barbarity of manners and recklessness of human pain that existed in the fifteenth century, we may form some notion of what his sensitive nature TO WN ED UCA TION. 45 may have had to endure from the rough treatment and gross insults of his master's Knechten. For although Albrecht was at this time a well-grown boy, and able no doubt to defend himself from the personal attacks of his enemies, yet his artist nature was probably endowed with keener sensibilities and a more delicate organization than were common amongst the Nurnberg youth. He was a genius, in short ; and the large, tender, and melancholy eyes that look out from that boyish sketch seem to tell us that he had to suffer all the numerous pangs and miseries that true genius has so often to endure from a cold and mocking world. But the thoughtful young apprentice must have often escaped from the noise and confusion of the workshop, and from the jeers and insults of his companions, into that bright world of imagination in which the artist-mind delights to dwell. We can picture to ourselves the beautiful youth, with soft light hair flowing down oh his shoulders, and that same tender dreamy expression of countenance that we see in the face of the youthful Raphael, wandering about the busy streets of Nurnberg, stopping maybe to gaze at the already old statues of the Schone Brunnen, or to examine the Gothic carvings of the Frauenkirche, or entering into St. Sebald's and falling into a musing mood before some Byzantine Madonna set up for his worship, but whose eyes stared out at him with unsympathetic and unmeaning regard, and whose limbs, as it already pained his true artist's eyes to perceive, were terribly out of drawing. Unfortunately, we cannot imagine Albrecht wandering forth alone into the fields and forests that lay outside the town, or deriving re freshment after his day's work by peaceful communion with Nature. The sweet companionship of mother Nature, the deep teaching of mountains, forests, and rivers, the soft charm of sunshine falling on the harvest-fields, the murmuring noises of the woods, and all the thousand influences — the " Sensations sweet, Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart," that come to us in our country rambles, were denied to the inhabitants of Nurnberg in the fifteenth century. Rarely, except on business to other towns, or other necessary travel, did the townsfolk of Nurnberg go far beyond its protecting walls. Shut in by them from their enemies, 46 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. they were also shut in by them from all real intercourse with Nature, and were only able to gain occasional glimpses of the wide-extending country that lay around them through the strong fortified gates or above the high battlemented walls of their town. The frequent feuds with neighbouring states, and the constant depredations of the Free Knights— who were always lurking around the precincts of the rich towns- rendered it indeed unsafe for any unarmed townsman to go forth alone to take a quiet evening walk in the country. Probably, had he done so, he might have found himself seized and carried off to some robber-castle, there to learn by sad experience in its dark dungeons, that, in spite of Wordsworth's assurance to the contrary, Nature can sometimes "betray the heart that loves her." " The towns of those days," says Dr. von Eye, " with their deep graves, high walls, and countless towers— such as we Niirn- bergers see them at the present day— were really places of refuge; and the feeling of safety within them must at that time have com pensated for the enjoyment that is vouchsafed to us in the free intercourse with nature and the world." Albrecht was forced then, even by the outward circumstances in which he dwelt, as well as by the secret promptings of his soul, to listen more frequently to "the still sad music of humanity," than to the softer harmonies of inanimate nature. Soul-cries of agony, doubt, and longing fell heavily on his young ears ; and the mystery of death, as we have seen, threw, even in childhood, its shadow on his life. We have evidence of this in some of his earliest productions ; a key note of sadness sounds through them all ; and, as in his more mature works, instead of che joyful triumph of springing manhood, we have thoughts about evil and death. A strange woodcut, executed in 1491, is reckoned by some critics among his early works ; and indeed it is so characteristic of his tone of thought and treatment, that it appears very likely that it was really a youthful conception. It represents three armed knights attacked by powerful skeletons in a narrow valley. One of the death- forms is just about to fell a knight from his horse with an enormous jawbone which he wields with immense strength ; another, swinging his death scythe, stands over the second knight, who has already fallen to the earth ; whilst the third skeleton lays hold of the flying mantle of the other knight, who is seeking to save himself by the swiftness PORTRAITS OF WOHLGEMUTH. 47 of his horse — the whole producing a terrible impression of the help lessness of human might against the powers of darkness. Of the works executed by Albrecht during his three years' service with Michael Wohlgemuth very little is known. Probably he worked, like the other apprentices, mostly on subjects designed by his master, whose commissions for works of art were so numerous that he was often obliged, like Rubens, to leave their execution to his pupils. Heller at all events only mentions two or three drawings of small importance as belonging to this period. One of these represents the three Swiss patriots — Werner Staufacher, Arnold von Melchthal, and Walther Furst ; and another that he speaks of as having been in the collection of Herr von Griinling at Vienna, represents a company of horsemen, and bears Durer's mark and the date 1489. The portraits that Diirer has left us of his master Wohlgemuth do not appear to have been taken until some years after his apprentice ship. The most important of these is the painting in the Munich Gallery, well known by Strixner's excellent lithograph ; but besides this there is a chalk drawing, engraved by Bartsch in 1785, and a medal representing Wohlgemuth's face in profile. In each of these portraits he is drawn as a very old man, with a face all wrinkled with years and cares, but with eyes in which the youthful fire of his spirit has not yet quite died out. He wears a small cloth cap on his head, from which a few straggling locks of hair escape, and a fur collar round his neck, then reckoned a mark of honourable distinction in a man's dress. On the portrait in the Munich Gallery there is an inscription in Durer's handwriting, to the following effect: — "This portrait Albrecht Durer has painted after his master, Michael Wohlgemuth, in the year 1516, when he was 82 years old; and he lived until the year 1519, when he died on St. Andrew's day, early, before the sun had risen." It is signed with Durer's monogram, and bears the date 1516. In 1490 Albrecht's Lehr-jahre were accomplished, and his father appears to have provided him with the means for travel. "And when I had served out my time," he writes, "my father sent me away ; and I remained four years abroad until my father desired me to come back again." 48 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. These years of travel (Wander-jahre), following a young man's apprenticeship, were deemed at that time in Germany a necessary, or, at all events, a desirable training for his intellectual powers, before he settled down as a master workman in his native town, and was received into one of its guilds. This custom must have been extremely beneficial to the young artist-workmen of Nurnberg, who by this means were able to make acquaintance with the works of foreign artists before they finally adopted a style of their own. But more especially to the young painter with a soul open to all the influences of nature, and all the glories of art, this pleasant period of travel must have been a grand growing time for his artistic powers, inuring him. "To see, throughout all nature, varied stuff, For better nature's birth by means of art." Unfortunately Albrecht is utterly silent concerning this time. He does not tell us where he went or what he saw, much less what he learnt during those four Wander-jahre ; he simply says that he set out from Nurnberg in the year 1490, after Easter, and returned after Whitsuntide in 1494. Various writers have endeavoured to supply this omission on his part, by determining, from their own sense of fitness, the places to which he was most likely to have travelled, and then confidently affirming that he went to them. Thus it is asserted by some that he spent the greater part of his Wander-'ahre in Italy; while others tell us that they were passed among the great painters of the Netherlands. There is, however, not the slightest real foundation for either statement. He may, it is true, have visited both Italy and the Low Countries at this time, for we have no proof to the contrary; but in that case it is somewhat strange that no allusion to such important events should have been preserved. It has indeed been argued that a phrase in one of the letters written long after wards to Pirkheimer from Venice refers to a prior visit. In this letter he says, " The thing which once pleased me, pleases me no more ; " but an argument founded on so vague an expression can surely be looked upon as no better than a mere guess. The word thing in this passage is moreover interpreted by some critics as meaning person. There seems, however, no reason for doubting Neudorfer's state ment1 that Albrecht was in Colmar in 1492, and that he became 1 Especially as it is confirmed by Pirkheimer. EARL Y PORTRAIT OF D URER. 49 acquainted whilst there with Martin Schongauer's three brothers, " who received him honourably, and entertained him in a most friendly manner." Hiipsch Martin himself had died three or four years pre viously to Albrecht's arrival in Colmar, who was thus deprived of any benefit, or harm, which might have accrued to him from personal intercourse with the older master ; but Martin's principal works still remained in his native town, and Albrecht would scarcely have failed to have studied them deeply and attentively. It likewise appears probable that Diirer visited Basel and Strasburg during his Wander-jahre, for a picture is still preserved in the Art Museum of the former place, representing the Adoration of the Kings, which is signed with his monogram, and bears the date 149 1 j1 and Dr. von Eye speaks of two portraits formerly in the Imhof Collection, which, according to the inscription upon them, were painted in 1494, and represent Durer's "Meister und Meisterin" at Strasburg. Who these persons were there is no means of knowing ; but if the inscrip tion be genuine, it certainly points to a residence at Strasburg towards the end of Durer's Wander-jahre. But although the materials are too scanty to allow us to form any clear picture of Albrecht's journeyings or mode of life at this period, there exists an interesting relic of these years in a portrait he has left us of himself at the age of two-and-twenty, and which therefore must have been painted during his travels. I have already described the strange, melancholy impression con veyed by Durer's earliest portrait of himself — that, namely, drawn at the age of thirteen. This vein of sactness likewise touches us in his later portraits, but in the two or three taken in the full vigour of manhood this melancholy is absent; or if it still lies at the bottom of the heart, it is not apparent on the bright, noble countenance — the fire-glancing eyes speaking to us of life's enjoyment rather than of life's pain. This particular portrait, painted in 1493, is unknown to me, except from a description that Goethe has given of it, but I should imagine that, although somewhat younger in age, it corresponds in character with the well-known portrait in the Uffizj Collection, to which the above remarks 1 Diirer's monogram on a picture is, however, by no means a certain proof that it is by him. No artist perhaps ever had more false pictures attributed to him, and this I should imagine one of them. H So LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. bear especial reference. Goethe says of the portrait he describes : " I hold as beyond value the portrait of Albrecht Diirer painted by himself in 1493, and therefore in his twenty-second year. It is half life-size, a half length, with no hands visible ; a purple cap, with short narrow strings ; neck bare to the collar-bone ; embroidery on the shirt, the folds of the sleeves bound with peach-coloured ribbons ; and a loose blue-grey cloak with yellow strings, very becoming to a handsome young man ; in his hand a piece of the significant blue flower called in Germany Man's- faith (Manns-treue) ; an earnest, youthful face, with sprouting hair on the mouth and chin, the whole admirably drawn, rich and harmonious in its parts, and of the highest execution, perfectly worthy of Diirer, although painted with very thin colour, which in some places has drawn up." Thus we can form some idea of what the outward appearance of the handsome young Nurnberg artist was at this time, with his " blue-grey cloak with yellow strings," and "sleeves bound with peach-coloured ribbons," but we have no means of knowing anything of his inner life and thought during this early period of manhood. There are, as I have stated, but few works belonging to this time ; and such as there are, they are not sufficiently characteristic to reveal to us anything of the thoughts and feelings of the artist. 1 The portrait described by Goethe was probably the one mentioned by Heller as being in 1803 in the collection of the Hofrath Beireis. Herr Beireis obtained it at Rome, and on this account it has been considered to be the portrait that Diirer sent to Raphael. But the interchange of presents between Diirer and Raphael took place long after the date of this picture, and it is not likely that Diirer would have sent Raphael a likeness of himself which represented him eight or ten years younger than he was at the time when it was sent. CHAPTER III. MARRIAGE AND SETTLEMENT IN NURNBERG. " I will be quiet and talk with you, And reason why you are wrong : You wanted my love — is that much true? And so I did love, so I do ; What has come of it all along ? " Robert Browning. In the year 1494, after Whitsuntide, Diirer finished his four years' wanderings and returned to his native town. Goethe's description of his portrait has already given us some idea of his personal appearance at this time, but we have a more direct testimony to his great dignity both of body and soul in the words of his friend Joachim Camerarius, who is himself memorable as having been the first Rector of the first Protestant college of Nurnberg, the Gymnasium or Latin school inau gurated in 1526 by Melanchthon. In the preface to his Latin trans lation of Durer's "Four Books of Human Proportion," Camerarius says : — " Nature gave our Albrecht a form remarkable for proportion and height, and well suited to the beautiful spirit which it held within ; so that in his case she was not unmindful of the harmony which Hippocrates loves to dwell upon, whereby she assigns a grotesque body to the grotesquely-spirited ape, while she enshrines the noble soul in a befitting temple. He had a graceful hand, brilliant eyes, a nose well formed, such as the Greeks call Terpdycovov, the neck a little long, chest full, stomach flat, hips well-knit, and legs straight. As to his fingers, you would have said that you never saw anything more graceful. Such, moreover, was the sweetness and charm of his language that listeners were always sorry when he had finished speaking." Nor II 2 52 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. were his mental and moral qualities less remarkable than his physical ones. Camerarius continues : " He did not indeed devote himself to the study of literature, though he was in a great measure master of what it conveys, especially of natural science and mathematics. He was well acquainted with the principal facts of these sciences, and could apply them as well as set them forth in words; witness his treatises on geometry, in which there is nothing to be desired that I can find, at least so far as he has undertaken to treat the subject." "But Nature had especially designed him for painting, which study he embraced with all his might, and was never tired of considering the works and the methods of celebrated painters, and learning from them all that commended itself to him." Such is the tribute that Camerarius, himself a man of distinguished merit in Nurnberg, pays to the high character of his friend Albrecht, whom he further extols as the "truest preserver of modesty and chastity." Still nobler, as well as more forcible, are the oft-quoted words of that true gentleman Philip Melanchthon, who, writing after his friend's death, says of him that " his art, great as it was, was his least merit." Albrecht Diirer the Christian man was worth even more in Melanchthon's eyes than Albrecht Diirer the artist ; and Melanchthon, as we shall learn, further on, had good opportunity for knowing him. Christopher Scheurl also, who made Durer's acquaintance when he visited Bologna during his stay in Italy, speaks of him as "facilis, humanus, officiosus, et totus probus ; " and all his early biographers testify to the great esteem in which he was held by every one who knew him. It could scarcely indeed be otherwise. Like his great Italian contemporary, Raphael Santi, Albrecht was fitted by his per sonal grace and sweet dignity of character to hold intercourse with men whose rank in society was far above his own ; and, as in Raphael's case, kings and emperors were amongst those who sought his acquaint ance and acknowledged the charm of his conversation. These remarks, it is true, apply principally to his developed cha racter in later years; but even at the time of his return to Nurnberg in 1494, the handsome face, noble bearing, and amiable temper of the young artist could scarcely have failed to have excited general interest and admiration amongst his fellow-townsmen and townswomen. Surely many of the fair daughters of Nurnberg must have cast glances of favour and kindness on the beautiful youth as he paced the streets of the HIS MARRIAGE. 53 town in his blue-grey cloak with yellow strings, with just the faintest possible smile of self-satisfaction (it is hard to call it conceit) on his bright face ; or as he sat on the pleasant summer evenings after Whit suntide and related to the German Desdemonas of the fifteenth century the story of his four years' wanderings, which he has neglected to tell for our benefit, but which doubtless he set forth with glowing descrip tions of foreign towns and grand works of art, to the delight of the home-staying youth who listened to him, many of whom perhaps had never travelled beyond their town's walls. Happiness and love may possibly have come very near to him at this period, peeping forth timorously from beneath the drooping eyelids of some pure-hearted German maiden whose soul was yet large enough to understand and sympathise with the high aspirations and noble endeavours of the artist ; but if it were so, he passed them by un consciously, and went on blindly to meet his fate in the shape of a narrow-minded and unsympathetic wife, who embittered the remainder of his life by the continual droppings of her contentious spirit, and who appears to have been utterly incapable of understanding the true genius and noble character of her husband. Agnes Frey, the daughter of Hans Frey, a man of property and position in Niirnberg,1 was, as we see by her portraits, a beautiful woman ; but it does not appear to have been her beauty or any other personal charm that led Albrecht to seek her in marriage. The match, indeed, seems to have been entirely arranged between the two fathers ; and the way in which Albrecht narrates the circumstance leads us to suppose that he had little or no personal knowledge of his bride before their unhappy union. " And when I came back," he says, " Hans Frey treated with my father, and gave me his daughter, by name Jungfrau Agnes, and he gave me with her two hundred florins. The wedding took place on the Monday before St. Margaret's day (July 7), H94-" It would certainly appear from these few words in which Albrecht records one of the most important events of his life that he himself had 1 Hans Frey has always hitherto been considered a mechanist or else a musician. Some writers, indeed, have spoken of him as a poor player on the harp ; but the recent researches of Dr. Lochner, author of " Nurnbergs Vorzeit und Gegenwart," have proved that he was a man possessed of large property both within and without Niirnberg, and that he had only an amateur acquaintance with mechanics and music. The match therefore, from a worldly point of view, was no doubt a good one for Diiref. 54 LIFE OF ALBRECILT DURER. very little choice in the matter, but simply accepted his wife as the result of a successful negotiation between the parents on either side ; but this need not necessarily have been the case. It is of course possible that he may have met Agnes Frey in the burgher society of Nurnberg, have been struck by her beauty and her conversation, and himself have incited the negotiation between the two fathers ; but if this were so, it appears strange that in recording the circumstances he should not have said, " My father treated with Hans Frey," instead of " Hans Frey treated with my father." As the passage stands the inference is strong that the first movement in the matter came from the lady's side, and if we consider the mode in which love and marriage were generally regarded in the fifteenth century we see no improbability in this view, and find it more natural to take Durer's words in their literal sense. There was much less sentiment, in spite of what poets have sung, in the hearts of men and women in those Middle Ages than there is at the present time. True and honest love of course existed then as it does now, and will continue to do, it is to be hoped, in every age ; but love-making and wooing were carried on in the fifteenth century in a much more practical and business-like manner than in the nineteenth. Young people were expected to be more submissive and obedient to the commands of their elders than they are now, and even in the personal matter of marriage they seem to have exercised a most prudent respect for the wisdom of their parents and relations, not venturing, like the bold froggy of nursery song, to go a- wooing without the consent of both father and mother. " Marriage," says Gustav Freytag, in his " Pictures of German Life in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries," " was considered by our ancestors less as a union of two lovers than as an institution replete with duties and rights, not only of married people towards one another, but also towards their relatives, as a bond uniting two corporate bodies. . . . Therefore in the olden time the choice of husband and wife was always an affair of importance to the relatives on both sides ; so that a German wooing from the oldest times even until the last century had the appearance of a business transaction, which was carried out with great regard to suitability." The matter-of-fact way in which German courtship was then con ducted is admirably illustrated in a passage from the journal of Willibald Imhof, Pirkheimer's grandson, which is quoted by Dr. von Eye in the notes to his " Life of Albrecht Durer." It is so charac- MED I As VAL COURTSHIP. 55 teristic of the point in question that I cannot forbear translating it here. Willibald Imhof was a man of refinement, and of "a poetic nature for the century in which he lived," and he thus describes the course of his true love, which certainly in his case appears to have run smoothly enough : — "Adj. 24 June, 1544, I saw my bride for the first time. "Adj. July 5 and 13. It [meaning the marriage] was talked about with me. "23 ditto. I resolved, and the same evening she was asked for me in marriage. "Adj. 28 ditto. My father-in-law gave his answer. "Adj. 29 ditto. I talked with her in the garden. "Adj. 31 ditto. It was decided in God's name. "Adj. 2 August. I wished her happiness. "Adj. 11 ditto. On a Monday the Handschlag [i.e. shake of the hand, in token of good faith] was given. "Adj. February, 1545, on a Thursday, St. Gerhart's day, I cele brated my marriage with Jungfrau Anna Harstorferin. God the Lord give us His blessing. Amen." Such then being the usual method in which the German youth of the fifteenth century accomplished their wooing, it need not strike us as in any way remarkable that the elder Diirer and Hans Frey should have settled their children's marriage without consulting them very much on the subject. The union may even have been arranged before Albrecht's return to Nurnberg, and it perhaps formed one of the reasons that led his father to " require him back again." No blame can be attached to the two fathers on this account. The marriage, so far as outward circumstances went, seems to have been suitable enough. Agnes Frey, as we have seen, brought to her husband a portion of two hundred florins, no inconsiderable sum for a daughter's dowry in those days. No one could then have foreseen that he would have, as an old writer1 expresses it, " for these two hundred florins at least two thousand unhappy days — a pound of silver and a hundred weight of misfortune ! " Probably her suspicious and fretful temper had not developed itself to any great extent at this time, and a little jealousy of the attentions her husband received from others, and a desire to 1 Quoted by Arend in his " Gedechtniss der Ehren Albrecht Durer's." 56 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. keep him constantly at home and in her society, may not have been altogether distasteful to the young bridegroom in the first days of his married life. But we can well understand that this domestic supervision and tyranny must at last have become an intolerable burden laid on the oppressed soul of the artist — a soul made heavy already with its big and sad thoughts, and which was now doomed to be ceaselessly tormented by the bitter speech and mean ideas of a narrow-minded woman. Yet it must not be supposed that Agnes Frey was a bad wife in the ordinary meaning of the term. No breath of scandal seems ever to have blown over her moral character, as over that of the beautiful woman who wrecked the happiness and honour of Andrea del Sarto. She was ever faithful to her husband, and loved him, no doubt, in some selfish fashion of her own ; but she was utterly unable to comprehend the true height of his artist nature — not only unable to reach up to it, or sympathise with it, which few women perhaps in that age could have done, but unable to recognise that it lay beyond her own small sphere of vision. Consequently she ever sought to drag him down into the narrow circle in which she lived, and appears to have grudged him the pleasure of mixing in any society above the burgher class to which she herself essentially belonged by birth, education, and tastes. Certainly these charges against her rest principally on the statements of Pirkheimer, and of late several writers have endeavoured to show that he was bitterly prejudiced against his friend's wife, and was therefore likely to be very unfair in his judgment of her ; but even if we make all due allowance for the learned statesman's feelings of dislike towards the fair Agnes, we can scarcely, unless we suppose him guilty of malicious untruth against a woman, refuse to believe his direct assertions respecting her avarice, her ill-temper, and the miserable life that she led her husband. He even goes so far as to say, in a letter written after Durer's death to his friend Johann Tscherte,1 that " next to the provi dence of God, he can ascribe Durer's death to no one but his wife, for she so gnawed at his heart and tormented him that he went from hence sooner than he otherwise would." This is indeed a grave accusation to bring against a woman, and perhaps it would have been more generous had Pirkheimer, whatever 1 Translated, among the other letters. UNHAPPINESS OF THE MARRIAGE. 57 he might have thought, been silent on such a subject, and left Agnes to the upbraidings of her own conscience ; but he seems to have been so overwhelmed with grief for the loss of his friend that he could not help breaking forth into loud reproaches against the wife whom he considered responsible for it. " She urged him day and night," he says, " to work hard only that he might earn money, even at the cost of his life, to leave to her when he died." And again he repeats emphatically, " The sum of the matter is, she alone is the cause of his death." Diirer himself, it is true, is ever silent concerning his domestic unhappiness. He seldom, indeed, mentions his wife either in his letters or his journal, but his very silence respecting her seems ominous of evil ; and when he does by chance allude to her, it is not in the tone that a loving husband would speak of a loving wife. Thus, in one of his letters from Venice, he styles her his mistress of accounts (Rechen- meisterin) — a word that, it is to be feared, expressed pretty accurately their mutual relations. Durer's marriage was never blessed with children ; at least there is no mention of any having been born to him in the account he has left us of his life, and it is not likely that he would have omitted to mention such an event. This circumstance may have contributed some what to sour the temper of the unhappy Agnes, and may have fostered that repining and fretful spirit of which Pirkheimer accuses her: for some women need the warm sun of motherhood to ripen their true nature ; and when this is denied to them, their hearts shrivel up into hard and cold petrifactions, unable to feel God's love in the universe, and therefore unable to sympathise in the sorrows and joys of others.1 But it is useless to speculate further on the cause of Agnes Frey's bad temper, or to frame hypotheses concerning the domestic troubles of her husband. He himself, as I have said, is mostly silent concerning them. His heart knew its own bitterness, and he desired not that strangers should intermeddle with it. If he really loved his wife, which is quite probable, in spite of the torment she caused him, he may have had true heart-joy in his married life, which more than made up for its irritating sores. "Why rushed the discords in, but that harmony should be prized?" 1 In a sentimental tale by Scheffer, founded on Durer's married life, a little daughter is bestowed upon him, whose early death adds to the sorrow of his life. I 58 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. At all events, we know so little for certain on this subject, even when all information, hints, and probabilities are added together, that it seems to me idle to attempt to construct, as many writers have done, any elaborate theory concerning Durer's married life on so slender a foundation. I should not indeed have dwelt so long on the question of Agnes Frey's behaviour towards her husband, but that it has been made the subject of most vehement controversy, some writers abusing her in unmeasured terms as a second Xantippe, and others, as I have before stated, considering that Pirkheimer's statements concerning her were dictated by ill-will and prejudice, and that probably she was after all a very suitable wife for Diirer, although she did not happen to please Pirkheimer. A few of her defenders indeed have even gone so far as . to represent her as a suffering angel, sorrowing in agony of doubt over her husband's apostasy from the Church of Rome, of which she always remained a faithful member. This, however, could scarcely have been the reason why she urged him to work night and day, and worried the life out of him by her fretfulness and suspicions. Altogether, I am afraid that the defenders of Agnes have far less ground to rest upon than her accusers, for there seems to be very little doubt that from some cause or other she failed to make her husband's home-life a pleasant one, and that alone is a sufficiently grave fault to be laid to the charge of any woman. During the first years of his married life, it appears probable that Diirer still continued to live in his father's house ; for, according to recently discovered documents, it was not until the year 1509 that he purchased the house in the Zissel-strasse (now Albrecht Durer- strasse), which is pointed out to strangers as Albrecht Durer's dwelling in Nurnberg (see Illustration). The outside of this house has undergone but little change since the time when he first inhabited it. Like almost everything else in Nurnberg, it belongs to the fifteenth century ; only the windows, I suspect, have been enlarged, and a little projecting chamber on the roof taken away. The lower part of the building is of massive stone ; but the upper part, like that of many other old houses in Nurnberg, is interspersed with rough-hewn and irregularly disposed beams, which give it a picturesque appearance, which is further enhanced by the low gable roof and little HIS HOUSE IN NURNBERG. 59 wooden balcony beneath it, which runs along one side of the building. Inside, a greater change has taken place, the arrangement of the ALBRECHT DURER'S HOUSE IN NURNBERG. rooms, &c, having been altered to suit the tastes of successive pro prietors ; still, even here, much remains the same as when Albrecht I 2 60 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. Diirer and Agnes Frey dwelt together in the dark rooms, unlit, it is to be feared, either by warm sunlight or warm love. It has altogether a somewhat melancholy aspect, and the room that tradition points out as Durer's working-room has a very dreary look, there being only one low arched window in it, looking out straight on to the dark castle wall. The house is now the property of the town, and will no doubt be preserved from further changes. It is used by the Diirer Kunstverein as a place of exhibition ; but the gay modern pictures in some of the rooms disturb the solemn associations with the past. In the same year as his marriage, Diirer was received into the guild of painters at Niirnberg. His masterpiece, or diploma picture,1 on this occasion was a pen-drawing of " Orpheus abused by the Bacchants," which afterwards came into the possession of Joachim Sandrart, who tells us, in his " Teutsche Academie," that it was executed with remarkable care. This seems a strange subject for Diirer to have chosen for illustration, but he appears just at this period to have inclined somewhat towards classical art; for in the Albert Collection at Vienna there are two other mythological subjects of the same date as the Orpheus, namely, " A Bacchanal of ten figures ; in the midst a Faun borne by two Satyrs," and "A Fight between Tritons," tioth of spirited execution and great beauty. Perhaps during his Wander-jahre he had adopted to a certain extent the then rising fashion of clothing German Art in Greek and Italian garments ; but if this were so, his healthy nationality and his individuality of genius soon proved too strong to be bound by any classic clothing, however gracefully worn, for some of his earliest works are conceived in the true Diirer spirit, and certainly have no classic beauty to recommend them, but rather a grim German ugliness. In the year 1494, Nurnberg was a prey to one of those fatal epidemics which so constantly ravaged the towns in the Middle Ages, producing in all minds the utmost terror and awe. Dr. Theodore Ulsenius, a celebrated doctor and poet, who happened to be town- physician at the time of this visitation, seized the occasion of the agitation it produced in the public mind to publish a sort of medical and moral tract, wherein he set forth, in learned Latin verse, his 1 The term masterpiece, does not denote the most celebrated work of a German artist, but is used to designate a diploma picture (Probe-arbcii) painted before his admission as a master into his guild. EARLY WORKS. 61 opinions concerning the plague and its proper treatment, mixing them up with many moral reflections and solemn warnings to his fellow- townsmen against their sins. In order to give greater impressiveness to this work, Ulsen determined to have it illustrated, and applied to Diirer, it is thought, to design a frontispiece for him. This com mission was executed in a manner that strictly accords with the taste of that time, which, as we know, delighted in Dances of Death and other ghastly subjects for art-representation. A fearful man's figure, in a mantle and hat adorned with a feather, stands forth in this picture, with his bare neck, arms, and legs covered with horrible plague-boils. On either side of him are the imperial arms of Nurnberg, and the half-eagle and crossbeam, the coat of arms belonging to the corporation of the town, whilst at his feet lies another shield with a sun. Above is a celestial sphere with the zodiac marked on it and the date 1484, probably denoting the year when the plague first broke out, for the inscription beneath the picture bears the date 1496. This Pest-bild, or plague-picture, is now of the greatest rarity.1 It has not Diirer's monogram, but I think there is very little doubt that it was executed by him. Whether it be his work or not, it is, at all events, significant as illustrating the taste and feeling of the time. More pleasing to contemplate as one of Diirer's earliest works is the excellent portrait of himself now in the Uffizj Gallery at Florence. This portrait is supposed to be identical with one that was formerly in the collection of Charles I., for in an old inventory of the king's pictures a portrait of Albrecht Diirer is mentioned, the description of which exactly coincides with the one now at Florence. Moreover, it is known that the town of Nurnberg presented such a picture to our art-loving Stuart. It is likewise affirmed that this portrait, "with another of Durer's father," was bought by a Grand Duke of Tuscany for the sum of 100/. at the sale of the Royal Collection at the time of the Revolution, and thus found its way to Florence. This certainly seems to be con clusive evidence for the identity of the two pictures ; but on the other hand it must be admitted that on Hollar's engraving of this portrait there is an inscription stating : — " Wenceslaus Hollar Bohemus fecit ex 1 The only example that I have met with is in the collection of Herr Cornill d' Or ville, of Frankfort. 62 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. Collectione Arundeliana, A. 1645, Antwerpice" whereby it would seem as if this picture had formed part of the Arundel Collection and not of the king's. But whatever be the previous history of this fine portrait, it has now a fitting resting-place in the celebrated Florentine collection of artists' portraits painted by themselves. It is so well known by means of repeated engravings that it is scarcely necessary to describe it here. The artist, a half-length figure, stands at a window, resting one arm on the window-sill, with his hands folded in front of him. He wears a shirt cut low in the neck and finely plaited and embroidered, a white jerkin striped with black, and a cloak thrown over the left shoulder and held by a long cord which seems to fasten it at the right shoulder. His hair is cut short on his forehead, but hangs down in curls on both sides. His beard is short and curly, and he wears a soft curiously-shaped cloth cap on his head. The face in this portrait is strictly handsome ; no fault can be found with it, but yet somehow it fails to satisfy our preconceived idea of the great and melancholy artist. There is a certain self-consciousness about it, or, as Kugler calls it, " a natve delight in his own splendid person ality," which destroys that sense of calm dignity and lofty wisdom that we gain from his other portraits. I own I never feel much pleasure in looking at the " splendid personality " of this portrait, nor can I ever realize it as being the true likeness of Albrecht Diirer. He has cer tainly represented in it his outer loveliness of body, but I think he has failed in this instance to reveal to us that inner loveliness of soul which we dimly perceive as lying beneath the well-formed mask of flesh in so many of his other portraits.1 Far more in accordance with our conception of the character of the man is the noble portrait of the Munich Gallery, which forms the frontispiece of this volume. This is the portrait that most lovers of Albrecht Diirer turn to as satisfying the ideal they have formed in their minds of the mystic and unfathomable and yet gentle and loving Albrecht Diirer. It was painted in 1500, consequently only two years 1 Herr Otto Mundler, whose opinion is undoubtedly of great weight on the subject, considers that the true original of this portrait is not at Florence, but in the Royal Gallery at Madrid. " The painter," he says, " cannot be fairly estimated by the .Florence example, whilst the Madrid portrait shows him to be the great painter he really was." INTERCOURSE WITH PIRKHEIMER. 63 after the Uffizj portrait, but he seems suddenly to have grown in it from a merely handsome young man into what Carlyle might call " The Hero as Artist A What calm majesty of intellect lies in that high unwrinkled forehead, and what exquisite tenderness of spirit beams forth on us from those sad tender eyes ! The deep-thinking mind of the man broods in silence over its thoughts of life and death, but we feel that with one little touch bf sympathy the whole face would melt into soft pity and love ; and therefore it is with deep reverence only, and not with any feeling of isolating awe, that we gaze on its solemn beauty, and seem to hear words of gentle wisdom from the full ripe lips.1 Looking at this portrait, we can well believe Camerarius when he says that Albrecht "was rightly esteemed one of the best of men." One " who desired to perfect himself both intellectually and morally," but "who never showed any sternness towards others or assumed an invidious merit." It is sad to think that such a loving nature as this should have missed the tender influences of home-happiness. What might not his genius have brought forth had it been ripened in the warm sunshine of a woman's love, which has ever proved a fructifying power to artists and poets ? But although Agnes Frey's violent temper and jealous super vision must have made the large house in the Zissel-strasse anything but a pleasant abode, yet outside its walls Diirer seems to have enjoyed a friendly intercourse with many of the principal citizens of Niirnberg ; and above all the constant society of his boyhood's friend, Willibald Pirkheimer, must have contributed to a great extent to dispel the depressing influences of his home, and to have brightened his dull life by affording it glimpses of a wider intellectual kingdom than that in which the burgher society of Nurnberg generally moved. From the time of Pirkheimer's return from his Swiss campaign under the Emperor Maximilian, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, Diirer and he lived in almost daily communion, and such communion as theirs could scarcely fail to have had an enlarging and beneficial influence on both minds. At the Pirkheimer mansion also Diirer met distinguished and learned men from all parts of the world, for scarcely any man 1 The resemblance that this portrait bears to the traditional portraits of Christ has been often remarked. It has likewise something of the character of the Greek Zeus. 64 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. of distinction ever visited Nurnberg without meeting with a friendly welcome at the house of the great merchant, statesman, and scholar. Poets, scholastic doctors, divines, men learned in gems and'' coins — of which Pirkheimer was a collector — pedants, merchants, and Church reformers, were all alike to be met with from time to time at his house, and Diirer must thus have had frequent opportunities of intercourse with men whose learning and whose knowledge of the world far transcended his own. But very soon the Nurnberg artist became the principal object of attraction to strangers at Pirkheimer's brilliant assemblages, and men of the highest rank and greatest acquirements sought his society, and were captivated by his graceful and dignified manner and eloquent speech, as well as by the greatness of his art. Durer's father, the good old goldsmith whose portrait, as we have seen, his son had painted in 1497, when he was seventy years old, still continued to live on for another five years, rejoicing no doubt greatly in his son's rising fame, and spared, we will hope, the sorrow of knowing that the wife he had "treated for " for him had failed to bring him any better portion than the two hundred florins. At last, in 1502, the father was called away from his work on earth. His son relates, in the following words, the circumstances of his Christian and peaceful death : — "After this," he says, "it happened by chance that my father fell ill of dysentery, in such a way that no one could cure him ; and when he saw death before his eyes he resigned himself willingly and with great patience, and he recommended my mother to me, and charged us to live a godly life. Then he received the Holy Sacrament, and departed in a Christian manner, as I have related at length in another book, in the year 1502, after midnight, before the eve of St. Matthew, to whom God be gracious and merciful." Curiously enough, the only leaf out of this " other book '' mentioned by Diirer that has escaped destruction, is the very one to which he alludes here as containing a longer account of his father's death.1 This accidentally-preserved page, numbered 19, appears to have been torn from out some old note-book of Durer's, wherein he had set down, as in the short autobiographical sketch so often quoted, some 1 Printed by Campe. It contains likewise the affecting narrative of his mother's death. Diirer relates such events in the most simple, but at the same time most reverent manner. HIS MOTHER COMES TO LIVE WITH HIM. 65 of the principal events of his life, apparently as if he intended at some time or other to write a history of his own life. Unfortunately this purpose, if he ever had it, was never accomplished. What would not be the value of such a history now, when every little scrap of infor mation that can be gained by diligent research is hailed in Germany as a real treasure-trove. The elder Diirer, who, as we have seen, had always to earn his living " with great toil," could not have left much to support his family after his death. Indeed we find that his widow, the once pretty young bride Barbara Hallerin, soon spent all she possessed, and became " quite poor." So two years after the death of her husband, during which she remained alone in her old house, her son Albrecht took her under his own care in his own house, where she also, poor thing, had no doubt to suffer much from the bitter tongue of his wife. Before this, immediately upon the death of his father, Diirer had taken his young brother Hans, who was only twelve years old at the time, to live with him, and educate as a painter. The other brother, Andreas Diirer, followed his father's trade of goldsmith, and appears to have set forth for his Wander-jahre about this period : he also was still a youth, so that of all her children the good mother had only her son Albrecht to depend upon. His love and care for her is shown by several little passages in his letters ; indeed, his childlike obedience and reverence for his parents is apparent throughout the whole of the simple record he has left us respecting them. CHAPTER IV. JOURNEY TO VENICE. LETTERS 70 PIRKHEIMER. " Venice once was dear, The pleasant place of all festivity, The revel of the earth, the masque of Italy." Byron. TOWARD the end of the year 1505, Diirer undertook a journey to Venice. Even at that time a regular trade was carried on between Nurnberg and its more illustrious rival, so that it is probable that Durer's works were well known in Venice before the time of his visit, and it may well be supposed that he was attracted to the far-famed city, not only by a desire of studying the works of the great masters of colour who then reigned in it, but also by the hope of generous recognition from the artists themselves, and possibly of more material encouragement from the art-patrons of Italy. Other motives, it is true, have been assigned as the cause of his visit ; some writers regard ing it as a mere pleasure trip, and others, following Vasari, asserting that he went to Venice expressly to defend his rights against the Italian pirates of his works, especially against Marc Antonio. But that wholesale piracy of his works which was carried on in such an unjustifiable manner at a later period, had not begun so early as this ; and as Diirer makes no mention of this grievance in any of his letters, it is reasonable to suppose that it could not have troubled him much ; or, at all events, that it could not have been the especial reason for which he made his journey. He mentions certainly in one place that the Italians copied his "thing" — i.e. his picture — in the Church, but this he says satirically, when deprecating their OBJECT OF THE fOURNEY. 67 criticism of his works, as " not being according to ancient art," without the least allusion to any more systematic theft. Probably his chief object in undertaking the journey was to widen his circle of friends, and thereby to gain larger and more profitable com missions than the limited society of Nurnberg was likely to bring to him. Niirnberg, indeed, seems to have paid her artists so badly for their labours that they were often driven by force to seek foreign patronage. During the ten years that had elapsed since Durer's marriage and settle ment in Nurnberg he must have been working from morning until night simply for daily bread ; for now, when he wanted a small sum of money to defray the expenses of his journey, he was obliged to borrow it of his friend Pirkheimer ; and the trifling sum that he mentions having left at home with his wife and mother for their household expenses during his absence, proves that his establishment in Nurnberg could not have been conducted on a very large scale. He made his journey on horseback, with all the necessaries for it strapped behind him — the quickest and pleasantest mode of travelling that the Middle Ages afforded. On the way, however, he fell ill, at a village called Stein, near Laibach, and was nursed there by a kind painter of the place, for whom, when he got well again, he painted a picture on the wall of his house, as a token of his gratitude for the painter's attention during his illness.1 He had also been ill, we know, in Niirnberg some time before, for in the British Museum there is a drawing of a Christ's head crowned with thorns, with a deeply sorrowful expression, and underneath it is written : "I drew this face in my sickness, 1503." Indeed, Durer's health seems never to have been very robust, and possibly this very journey was undertaken as much for the sake of health and relaxation as from prudential motives. But from whatever motive it was undertaken, it certainly afforded him a great amount of enjoyment, and proved a bright spot in his ordinarily dull life. It was not only that he escaped for a time from the bitter tongue of his wife, and the " res angusta domi " that pressed so heavily upon him in Nurnberg ; but here, for the first time, he found 1 This interesting circumstance has only lately been brought to light. A notice to the above effect was found written on a loose sheet amongst some papers, dating back into the sixteenth century, belonging to the Attem family. See " Anzeiger fiir Kunst, 1864," and appendix to Von Eye. K 2 68 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. himself appreciated at his true value, and his society eagerly sought, both by the great artists and the great world of Venice. " Oh, how I shall freeze," he writes pathetically to Pirkheimer, when the time for his return draws nigh, " how I shall freeze after this sunshine ! " and again, " Here I am a gentleman ; at home I am only a parasite." These letters to Pirkheimer reveal to us more of Diirer's own thoughts about things than most of his other writings, but unfortunately even these are more taken up with his friend's business than with his own ; and we are annoyed at details about precious stones and other treasures that Pirkheimer had commissioned him to buy, when we want to hear what Diirer himself is doing. However, they afford us a vivid glimpse of Venetian society at its brightest time ; at a time when Giovanni Bellini, the great patriarch of Venetian art, was still alive, and when Giorgione and Titian, his two greater pupils, had already surpassed their master in the glory of their colour. It is strange that Diirer does not allude in any of his letters to the two latter masters, for they must have been already engaged in painting the outside of the Fondaco de' Tedeschi, the Hall of Exchange of the German merchants in Venice, when he was there, and he himself was likewise, as we shall see, employed by these same German merchants on a great altar-piece. All the letters written to Pirkheimer bear this superscription, " To the honourable and wise Herr Willibald Pirkheimer, Burgher of Niirn berg, my gracious Lord',' and are sealed with the Diirer crest ; namely, a pair of open doors on a shield. There is no punctuation whatever in the original manuscript, and the sentences run one into another in the most extraordinary manner.1 1 These letters, after Pirkheimer's death, passed into the possession of the Imhof family, which inherited besides most of the art treasures of Pirkheimer's collection, he leaving no direct male heir. They seem to have owed their preservation to a lucky chance; for instead of being sold, lost, and destroyed, like so many of Durer's works in this same collection, they were for some reason walled up with other family papers in the Imhof mansion during the Thirty Years' War, and remained forgotten, until recent times, when on making some alterations in the house, they were again brought to light. They were finally sold by the Haller family to the town of Nurnberg, and are now preserved in the old town library, where, by the courtesy of the librarian, I was permitted to examine them a short time ago. They have been somewhat roughly treated, and the seals that were formerly attached to them have been broken off, but the writing is still perfectly distinct, and the paper, although yellow and brown with age, is strong and good. I noticed that the water-mark of the paper of the first letter was a flower, and that of the seventh an anchor in a circle. They were first printed S|B iliBALDipiRKEYM.HERiEFFiGiES • AETAtis syAE- ANNO l- iii- VlviTVR. LNGEMIO • CAETERA.-M.ORTIS * ERYMT- a* vv \ . AY AD >~X.AXL) • .IV: • . pAl p \AAM§A4 ,* ptp:-pAi %k m mm — *•¦* vy*?"^---" -t" :">.;---!-y.? v* f-r vv; -.'¦"' v. q^r :;<'¦,'¦'*•¦?¦¦'¦* "? S. AP -.". \- yiPyK;ypy::pp?ppA<^ipP^>^ > LETTER I. 69 The first letter is dated from Venice on Twelfth-day 1506. LETTER I. My willing service, in the first place, to my dear Herr Pirkheimer. Know that my health is much better, thank God. Item : I wish you, and all yours, many happy and blessed new years. Item : with regard to the pearls and precious stones that you have commissioned me to buy. Know that I can obtain nothing good, or worth the money asked for it, for everything is snapped up by the Germans. Those who go about selling such things always want to make 4 times what they are worth out of them, and they are the most faithless people that ever lived, so that one need not expect any honest service from them, and I have been warned to be on my guard against them. You can buy better things at Frankfort for less money than at Venice. As to the books that I was to order for you, the Imhofs have done all that, but if you want anything more let me know, and I will use my utmost diligence to execute your wishes. I wish to God that I could do you a greater service. I would do it joyfully, for I recognise that you have done much for me, and I beg you to have compassion on my debt, of which I think oftener than you do. As soon as God helps me home again, I will repay you honourably, with the greatest thanks, for I have received a commission to paint a picture for the Tedeschi. They are to pay me for it, a hundred and ten Flemish florins, and not more than 5 will go in expenses. I shall have prepared and scraped the panel in eight days' time, and then I shall begin at once to paint, so that I may, if God will, have it into its place above the altar a month after Easter. I hope, by the help of God, to be able by Von Murr, whilst still in the possession of the Haller family, in his " Journal ziir Kunstgeschichte und Litteratur," vol. x. 1781, and again by Dr. F. Campe, in 1828. There are slight differences in the text of these two versions, although they both profess to be printed quite correctly from the original. " Nach dem Originalen ganz treu abgedruckt," says Dr. Campe. The translation here given is from Von Murr, collated with Campe. I have endeavoured in it to be as faithful to Durer's old- fashioned style as possible, but sometimes it has not been possible to render provincial fifteenth-century German into nineteenth-century English. Those who have ever attempted anything of the kind will know the extreme difficulty of the task, and will be lenient to small errors. 70 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. to save all the money, and out of it I will pay you, for I do not think I need send either my mother or my wife any money at present. I left my mother 10 florins when I rode away, and since then she has obtained 9 or 10 florins from art, and the wire-drawer has paid her 12 florins; I have also sent her 9 florins by Bastian Imhof, out of which she is to pay 7 florins owing to the Pfinzing family for her rent.1 I have given my wife 12 florins, and she has received 13 from Frankfort, making in the whole 25 florins. I do not think she will want any more, but if she does, her brother-in-law must help her until I come home again, when I will repay him honourably. Herewith I commend myself to you. Dated from Venice on Holy Three Kings' day, in the year 1506. Greet Stephen Baumgartncr for me, and any other of my friends who ask after me. Albrecht Durer. It will be seen by this letter that Pirkheimer had burdened his friend with many commissions for precious stones and other rare and valuable articles in which he was, or fancied himself, a connoisseur, and about which he seems to have given poor Diirer — who repeatedly tells him he has no knowledge of such things — a vast amount of trouble and annoyance. It has always been imagined, until quite recently, that the picture which the Tedeschi, or guild of German merchants in Venice, com missioned Diirer to paint, and to which he alludes in this letter, repre sented the martyrdom of St. Bartholomew, the saint to whom the Church in Venice, in which the picture was destined to be placed, was dedicated. Von Murr, indeed, distinctly states that this was the subject of the picture, and says that it afterwards came into the possession of the Emperor Rudolf 1 1., who hung it in his gallery at Prague. But it has lately been satisfactorily ascertained that the picture that Diirer painted during his stay in Venice was the one that is now in the Monastery of Strahow at Prague, and this represents, not 1 It appears that Durer's mother still paid an annual rent of four florins to the Pfinzing family for the house that had been left her by her husband. Diirer, however, in 1507, redeemed this payment by the sum of 116 florins paid down. LETTER II. 71 the martyrdom of St. Bartholomew, but the Feast of Rose Garlands, a feast instituted by St. Dominic in honour of the Virgin. LETTER II. My willing service to you, dear Herr. When all goes well with you, I rejoice with all my heart as if it were myself. I have lately written to you. Assure me that you have got my letter. In the meantime my mother has written to me, and scolded me for not writing to you, saying that you are offended with me for not having done so. She is much troubled about it, and thinks I can scarcely excuse myself to you. If it is so, I have nothing to reply, except that I am idle in writing, and that you have not been at home. As soon as I understood that you were at home again, or were expected home, I wrote to you at once, and also particularly desired the bearer to greet you from me. Therefore I pray you humbly to pardon me, for I have no other friend on earth but you. I cannot, however, believe that you are angry with me, for I think of you not otherwise than as a father. I wish you were here in Venice ; there are so many pleasant companions amongst the Italians ( Walschen), with whom I am becoming more and more intimate, so that it does one's heart good. There are learned men amongst them, good lute-players, pipers, some having a knowledge of painting ; right honest people, who give me their friendship with the greatest kindness. On the other hand, there are also among them the most lying, thieving rascals that ever lived on the earth ; and if one was not acquainted with their ways, one would take them for the most honest men in the world. I often laugh to myself when they speak to me, for they know that all sorts of knavery is known of them, but they care nothing about it. I have many good friends among the Italians, who warn me not to eat or drink with their painters, for many of them are my enemies, and copy my thing (i.e. my picture) in the church, and others of mine wherever they meet with them. And yet notwith standing this they abuse my works, and say that they are not according to ancient art, and therefore not good. But Sanbellinus ?2 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. (Giovanni Bellini) * has praised me highly before several gentlemen, and he wishes to have something of my painting. He came himself and asked me to do something for him, saying that he would pay me well for it. And all the people here tell me what a good man he is, so that I also am greatly inclined to him. He is very old, but yet he is the best painter of them all ; and that thing which pleased me so well eleven years ago, pleases me now no more. If I had not seen it myself, I could not have believed anybody else about it ; also be it known to you that there are many better painters within this city than Master Jacob is without it, although Anthony Kolb swears that there is no better painter on earth than Jacob. The others laugh at this, and say if he were good for anything he would stay here. To-day, for the first time, I have begun to sketch out my picture, for my hands have been so sore that I have not been able to work at it hitherto. Now, be amiable towards me, and do not get in a rage with me so soon. Be as sweet-tempered as I am. You never will learn from me. I do not know how things are faring with you. I should like to know, my dear, whether any of your loves are dead, that one near the water, or that resembling this &> or <#> or #-^ga Given2 at Venice at nine o'clock at night, on the Saturday after Candlemas (Feb. 7), in the year 1506. Present my service to Stephen Baumgartner, Herr Hans Harstofer and Volkamer. Albrecht Durer. This letter is written in a much brighter frame of mind than the last. Diirer finds himself appreciated by the "Walschen," amongst 1 Zan Belin in the Venetian dialect of that time, which Diirer renders Sanbellinus. 8 The following sentence precedes this in the original, — "Madle awff Ir ein under an derselben stattprechl." I have endeavoured in vain to make any sense of it. Passages such as this, that I have not been able to translate, I have given in the original, hoping that some one whose knowledge of early German is greater than mine may be able to discover their meaning. ANECDOTE OF BELLINI. 73 whom he now feels at home. It is noteworthy, however, that he is warned by his good friends (gut gesellen : Diirer calls all his acquaint ance — whether gentlemen or workmen, gut gesellen) not to eat or drink with his brother artists. This reveals a dark current running beneath the brilliant surface of Venetian society in the sixteenth century. Assassination and poisoning were indeed the means fre quently made use of to extinguish rivalry either in art or love. Many deeds of this sort are told of the artists of Venice and Naples at this and a later period ; it is, however, pleasant to find that one at least of these artist-poisoning cases, namely, the poisoning of Domenic Veniziano by Andrea del Castagno, is unworthy of credit;1 and we may hope that the Italian artists had a worse name at this time than they deserved ; and that, although they copied Durer's " thing " in the church, and blamed his work for not being " according to ancient art," he yet might have received their invitations to dinner with safety. Camerarius relates a pretty little anecdote apropos of the visit of Giovanni Bellini to our artist, which he probably learnt from Diirer's own lips. He says that Giovanni, on seeing Durer's works, was particularly struck with the fineness and beautiful painting of the hair in them, and asked Diirer, as a particular mark of friendship, to give him the brush wherewith he executed such marvellously fine work. Diirer offered him a number of brushes of all sorts, and told him to choose which he preferred, or, if he liked, he was welcome to take them all. Giovanni, thinking that Diirer had not understood him, again explained that he only wanted the particular brush with which he was accustomed to paint such long and fine parallel strokes ; whereupon Diirer took up one of the ordinary brushes, such as he had offered to Bellini, and proceeded to paint a long and fine tress of woman's hair, thereby convincing Bellini that it was the painter, and not the brush, that did the work. Bellini avowed afterwards that he would not have believed it possible had he not seen it with his own eyes. The mysterious sentence in this letter— "the thing that pleased me so well eleven years ago pleases me now no more" — on which, as I have before said, a whole theory relating to a previous visit of Diirer to Venice rests, may possibly refer to a picture by Bellini, ' Crowe and Cavalcaselle, " I list, of 1'ainling.'' I. 74 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. for he is speaking of him at the time ; but then, as will be seen, Durer often jumps from one subject to another without there being any apparent connexion between them. The hieroglyphic drawings at the end of the letter probably refer to some persons whose names, or nicknames, are thus symbolically set forth in a manner that no one but Pirkheimer, or some one who was aware of the allusion conveyed in them, could understand. The moral character of the "honourable and wise Herr Willibald Pirk heimer" was not, it is greatly to be feared, one of exalted virtue. Certainly we cannot tell, at this distance of time, whether the frequent allusions that Diirer makes in his letters to his friend's amours were intended chiefly in playful, and, it must be owned, not very refined jest, or whether his sarcasms and reproofs were meant in sober earnest ; but, at all events, Diirer could not have ventured even to have joked his noble friend on this subject, had he remained incon solable for the loss of his wife, his beloved Crescentia, who had died two years before the date of these letters, and of whom he records, in a Latin inscription on the picture that Albrecht Diirer drew of her death-bed, that she " never caused him any grief except by her death."1 1 Pirkheimer's wife, Crescentia Rieterin, died in child-birth, in 1 504, after two years of happy married life. This picture of her death-bed by Durer is spoken of by Heller as a beautifully executed painting in water-colours. According to Heller, the original painting was in the Forster collection at Niirnberg, but Von Eye believes that the painting in that collection was only a copy and that the original was sold " to a dis tinguished merchant in Amsterdam in 1633." He founds this opinion on a passage to that effect in the note-book of Hieronymus Imhof, the last possessor of the great Imhof collection of Durer's works. This Hieronymus Imhof was obliged, in conse quence of the " hard times," to turn into money (versilbern) many of the " useless art things " that he had inherited, and amongst them several of Durer's pictures. The water-colour painting in question is thus described by Von Eye : " The middle of the picture is taken up by the great red-curtained bedstead upon which the sick person lies and receives the last sacrament. Her husband sits at the head of the bed dressed in black, and with his face turned away, and hidden in a handkerchief. Around the dying woman are many persons of both sexes, lay as well as clerical ; a kneeling Augustine monk, probably the prior, Eucharius Karl, who was intimate with both friends, reads from a book; a nun in black dress, probably Pirkheimer's sister, wipes the death-sweat from the pale forehead. A doctor at the foot of the bed appears to observe the coldness of the feet of the patient ; other persons minister around or remain as quiet spectators of the scene. Above the curtains in front is a Latin inscription in gold letters, in which Pirkheimer bears witness that his wife never, LETTER III. 75 LETTER III. My willing service to my dear Herr Pirkheimer. I send you with this a ring with a sapphire, about which you have written to me. I was not able to find one at first, and spent two days going about to all the German and foreign goldsmiths in Venice, with a good comrade, whom I have paid for his trouble. We have com pared it with others, (" parungan gemacht ;" French, Parangonf) but have found none equal to it for the same money, for I have bought it by earnest entreaty for 18 ducats and 4 martzel of a man who wore it on his own hand, and who wished to do me a service, and thought I wanted it for myself. As soon as I had bought it, a German goldsmith offered me 3 ducats more for it than I had given ; therefore, I hope you will be pleased with it, for every one says it is a rare (gefundener) stone, and worth 50 florins in Germany. You will know whether they speak the truth or lie. I do not under stand such things. I bought at first an amethyst, from a so-called friend, for 12 ducats, but he cheated me in the matter, for it was not worth seven. However, some good fellows arranged the matter between us, so that in the end I gave him back his stone, and only paid for a fish dinner. I was very joyful at this, and took my money back again very soon ; and when my friends estimated the value of the ring, they told me it was not worth more than 19 florins Rhenish, for it weighed about 5 florins in gold. I have not, therefore, over stepped your limit, for you wrote to me from 15 to 20 florins. But I have not yet been able to purchase the other stone, for one seldom finds them together. But I will still use my best endeavours for it. They say that in Germany such things are cheaper, particularly in Frankfort, where the fair is held at the present time, for the Italians import such things from thence. They laughed at me when I offered 2 ducats for a little cross of jasper. Therefore write to me soon and tell me what I am to do. I know where there is a good small diamond to be had, but I do not except by her death, caused him any trouble. On the curtains at the back is written, likewise in Latin, the year and day of her death." L 2 76 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. know yet for how much. That I will buy for you if you write again and wish for it. The emeralds are dearer than anything I have seen in all my days. If any one has a little amethyst stone, he thinks nothing of estimating it at twenty to twenty-five ducats. I am almost inclined to believe that you must have taken to yourself a wife. Take care she does not become your master. But you are wise enough on occasion, d. h. p. Andreas Kunhoffer sends his service to you, and begs that you will, if necessary, tell his master that he does not wish to stay at Padua ; he says there is nothing for him to learn there. And I beg you do not be angry that I do not send you all the stones at this time, for I have not been able to do it. The goldsmiths here say that you should have the stone put on new foil. Then, even if the ring is old and the foil spoilt, it will look as good as new. Also speak to my mother, and tell her to write to me and to keep friendly. Herewith my greeting. Given at Venice, the second Sunday in Lent (March 8) in the year 1506. Greet your household from me. Albrecht Durer. One of the rings about which Diirer had taken so much trouble did not happen to please his learned friend, and in the next letter it will be seen he receives it back again. LETTER IV. My willing service in the first place. Dear Herr, I have received a letter from you on the Thursday before Palm Sunday, and with it the emerald ring, and I went immediately to him from whom I had it, and he will give me back the money for it, although not very willingly, but he agreed to redeem it, and therefore must keep to his word. I know that the jewellers here buy emeralds in foreign towns and import them into Venice. The goldsmiths (gesellen) here tell 111c that each of the other two rings is worth six ducats, for LETTER IV. 77 they are cleanly and finely cut and have no impurities in them, and they say you should not estimate them, but simply ask for what they would let you have such rings, and see whether they are worth it. Bernhard Holtzpock, who was present at the purchase, would have bought the rings of me again at once, although I had lost two ducats on the three rings. Since then I have sent you a sapphire ring through Hans Imhof. I think I made a good bargain about it, for I could have sold it again at once for more than I had given. But I should like to hear from you that such was the case, for you know I understand nothing about such things, and can only believe those who advise me in the matter. Learn also that the painters here are very ungracious towards mc. They have summoned me three times before the magistrates, and I have been obliged to pay four florins to their school. You must also know that I should have been able to make much more money if I had not undertaken the picture for the Tedeschi. There is a great deal of work in it, and I cannot get it done before Whitsuntide. They have only given me eighty-five ducats, and you know that soon goes in living expenses. I have also bought a few things, and have also sent off some money, so that I have not much left. But my determination is, not to leave this place until God enables me to pay you back with thanks, and have a hundred florins over. These I should gain easily if I had not to work on the German picture, for, with the exception of the painters, every one wishes me well. With regard to my brother, tell my mother to speak to Wohlgemuth, and see whether he wants him, or will give him work until I return, or to others, so that he may help himself. I would willingly have brought him with me to Venice, which would have been useful to him and to me, and also on account of his learning the language, but my mother was afraid the heavens would fall upon him and upon me too. I pray you, have an eye to him yourself; he is lost with the womenfolk. Speak to the boy as you know well how to do, and bid him behave well and learn diligently until I return, and not be a burden to the mother, for I cannot do everything, although I will do my best. For myself, I am safe, but it is difficult to earn much, for no one throws away his money. Herewith I greet you, 7g LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. and tell my mother1 But I feel sure my wife has come home, and I have also written to her about these things. I will not buy the diamond until you write again. I cannot be sure of leaving here before the autumn, for the payment for the picture, which is to be ready at Whitsuntide, all goes in living expenses, buying, and payments of all kinds, but what I earn after that I hope to keep ; so do not trouble yourself, for I will pay the interest from day to day.2 Every day I write as if I were going, yet I remain undecided. I do not know myself what I shall do. Write to me again soon. Dated the Thursday before Palm Sunday (April 2) in the year 1506. Albrecht Durer, Your Servant. Another complaint in this letter against the jealous and ungracious (unhold) painters of Venice,;who this time seem to have annoyed Diirer in a very mean manner, making him pay, for some reason or another, four florins to their art-schools. He does not seem, indeed, to be deriving much profit, in a pecuniary sense, from his sojourn in Venice, for he finds more work to do on his picture for the Tedeschi than he anticipated, and all the money he gets for it is swallowed up in living expenses ; yet he will not return to Niirnberg until he has made a hundred florins (not a very ambitious sum) over and above his debt to Pirkheimer, which still seems to trouble him. His young brother Hans has evidently been giving the good mother some anxiety in his absence. He must learn to help himself and not be a burden to the mother, but until Diirer returns, will Pirkheimer " have an eye upon him, for he is lost with the womenfolk ?" Agnes seems to have been away 1 This sentence, " Day sy awff day Herltib feil las haben," Von Murr declares to be quite unintelligible. Campe, however, supposes that the word Herltib, which he reads Hertteln, alludes to a game played with Easter eggs, and therefore surmises that Durer's mother prepared such eggs for sale. This is, however, a bare hypothesis, and it seems more likely that if Diirer enjoins his mother to have a sale, he means of some of his woodcuts and engravings. s This sentence is also somewhat obscure, so I give it in the original : " Uber dunckt es vch gerotten so sorget nit wan ich will von Dags zu Dags verzilhen!' Ver- zilhen, according to Von Murr, means verzinnsen, to pay interest, but one can scarcely imagine that Diirer would pay interest for the money he had borrowed from Pirkheimer. LETTER V. 79 somewhere for a time, but now that Diirer imagines that she has returned home, he writes to her "about things." LETTER V. My faithful service to my dear Herr Pirkheimer. If all goes well with you, it is a great joy to me. Know that by the grace of God I am well, and that I am working diligently (fugs), but I do not think I shall be ready (that is, with the picture for the German Company) before Whitsuntide, and I have sold all my pictures down to the last one. I have given two for twenty-four ducats, and the three others for three rings, which were valued when I bought them at twenty-four ducats ; but I have shown them to some good workmen (gesellen), who say they are worth only twenty-two ducats ; and as you wrote to me to buy you some stones, I thought I would send you the rings by Franz Imhof, and let you see them, who understand them, and if you like to value them you can keep them for what they are worth. But if you do not want such things any longer, send them back to me by the next messenger, for they will give me here in Venice 12 ducats for the emerald and 10 ducats for the ruby and the diamond, so that I shall not lose more than 2 ducats. I wish that it suited you to be here. I know you would find the time pass quickly, for there are many agreeable people here, very good connoisseurs ; and I have sometimes such a press of Walschen to visit me that I am obliged at times to hide myself ; and all the gentlemen wish me well, but very few of the painters. Dear Herr, Andreas Kunhoffer desires his service to you, and will write to you by the next messenger. Herewith I also greet you, and I recommend my mother to you. I wonder very much at her not having written for so long, also my wife ; it seems as if they were lost. Also I wonder that you have not written to me, but I have read the letter that you have written to Bastian Imhof about me. Also I beg you to give the two enclosed letters to my mother, and I beg you to have patience with me (i.e. with regard to his debt) until God helps me home again, when I will honourably repay you. 8o LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. Greet Stephen Baumgartner for me, and my other good friends ; and let me know whether your sweetheart is dead. Read this letter according to the sense. I am in haste. Given at Venice, on the Saturday before White Sunday1 (April 18), in the year 1506. Albrecht Durer. To-morrow, it is good to confess (Morgen ist gut peichten.) Diirer seems here to have been doing a little bargaining on his own account, taking rings in exchange for pictures ; but it is evident that he will lose at least two ducats by the transaction — probably more. Foolish artist ! Stephen Baumgartner or Paumgartner, as he writes it, to whom he sends greeting in this and several other letters, belonged to an important family in Nurnberg, and was an intimate friend of Durer's. The por traits of Stephen Baumgartner and his brother Lucas are now in the Munich Gallery : they form the side-wings of an altar-piece that Diirer painted for their family. Between Letter V. and Letter VI. it seems probable that some letter is lost ; for Diirer mentions in Letter VI. that he has written to Pirkheimer but a short time ago, and he cannot surely refer to the communication " on the Saturday before White Sunday " (18th of April) four months before, Letter VI. being dated plainly without reference to any saint or holy day, the 18th of August, 1506. LETTER VI. Grandissimo primo homo de mundo woster servitor ell schiauo Alberto Durer disi (dice) salus sun (a suo) magnifico Miser (Messer) Willibaldo Picamer my fede el aldy Wolentiri cum grando piser (piacere) woster sanita e grando honor el my maraweio como ell possibile star vuo homo cusy (cosi) wu (voi) contra thanto sapientissimo Tirasibuly milytes non altro modo ysy vna gracia de Dio quando my leser woster Litera de questi strania fysa de catza (viso di cazzo) my habe tanto pawra et para my vno grando kosa, but I think that the Scotch 1 Wliite Sunday was the Sunday nftcr Easier. LETTER VI. 8 1 have frightened you also.1 But it has a very bad odour when a soldier wishes to smear himself with civet. You are becoming quite a fop (seidenschwanz, silk-tail), and think if you only please the women that is all that is necessary. If only you were a nice amiable fellow such as I am, I should not be so angry. You have so many love- intrigues, that if you were to settle with them all at one time you would be ruined in a month (?.). I thank you for having arranged my business with my wife. I recognise your wisdom fully. If only you were as gentle-hearted as I am, you would have all the virtues. Also I shall thank you for the kindness you have shown me, if you will only leave me free of those rings. If they do not please you, break their heads off and throw them away. Why should I be obliged to occupy myself with such trifles, do you think ? I am a gentleman in Venice. Also I have heard that you are making good rhymes. You would be acceptable to our violin-players here ; they play so beautifully that they weep themselves at their own music sometimes. Would to God that our mistress of accounts {rechen-meisterin) could hear them ; she would weep also. At your command I will once more moderate my anger and behave bravely, as is my custom ; but I cannot leave here for two months, for I have still nothing to take back with me, as I have before informed you, and therefore I beg you to lend my mother 10 florins if she should apply to you, until God helps me home, when I will repay it to you honourably with the rest. Item : The vitrum ust.rum (Venetian glass) I send you by this messenger, and as to the two carpets, Anthony Kolb will help me to buy the prettiest, broadest, and cheapest he can get, and when I have them I will give them to the young Imhof to send to you. Also I, will see after the crane feathers. I have not yet found any, but only swan quills, used for writing. How would it be if you stuck one of those in your hat ? Also I have asked a book-printer, who says he knows of no Greek (books) lately published, but if he hears of any he will let me know that I may write to you. Item : Let me know what paper you mean that I am to buy, for I know of none better than can be got at home. Item : With regard to 1 I cannot understand the meaning of this passage. The whole reads thus : " Aber ich halt daz dy schottischen ewch awch gefurcht hand wan Ir sccht awch wild und Sunderlich im Heilten wen Ir den schritt hypferle gand." M g2 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. histories, I see nothing in particular done by the Walschen that could enliven your studies. It is always the same thing. You know yourself more than they tell. Item: I have written to you a short time ago by the messenger of the Pewterers. Item : I should like to know how you have settled things with Kuntz Imhof. Herewith I greet you. Present my service to our Prior.1 Beg him to pray that God may have care of me, and may preserve me from the French disease (an epidemic then raging in Venice), which I fear greatly, for every one is taking it here. Many people die of it. Also greet Stephen Baumgartner, Herr Lorentz, all our sweethearts, and all those who ask after me kindly. Dated at Venice, on the 18th of August, 1506. Albertus Durer, Norikorius sibus (perhaps meaning civis). Item: Andreas is here, and desires his service to you. He is not yet very strong, and has great want of money, for his long illness and debt have eaten up everything. I have lent him eight ducats, but say nothing about this to come back to him again, he might otherwise think I had done it from want of confidence. Know that he is con ducting himself wisely and honourably, and that every one likes him. Item : I have it in my mind, if the King comes to Italy, to go with him to Rome. Diirer must have been in excellent spirits at the time he wrote this letter, for he manifests the most lively humour and sarcasm in it, and chaffs — as we should now call the mocking strain in which he writes — his wise and gracious lord with infinite relish. He even breaks forth into the most barbarous Italian, and declares himself, in amusing "Welsch," to be the servant and slave of the first man in the world — the magnificent miser Willibaldo Pircamer ; forthwith, however, proceeding to call the said first man in the world to account for his vanity and immoral proceedings. 1 Eucharius Karl, Prior of the Monastery of the Augustines in Niirnberg, and a friend of Pirkheimer's and Durer's. PIRKHEIMER AND AGNES FREY. 83 Diirer's letters seem indeed to have lost of late a certain painful deference of tone, that is distinctly observable in the earlier ones. He never, it is true, quite forgets the difference in social rank between himself and his friend; he always, for instance, addresses Pirkheimer as " Ihr," and never with the more familiar " Du," which otherwise he probably would have used to the companion of his boyhood, but in all other respects they stand as equals, for, as Diirer reminds Pirkheimer in this letter, "he is a gentleman in Venice," hinting at the same time that he is not disposed to run on his friend's errands any longer : " Only leave me free of those rings," he exclaims, some what impatiently. We also cannot help wishing that Pirkheimer had bought his jewellery "cheaper and better in Frankfort," for Diirer might then have filled his letters with more interesting details of his own life in Venice, instead of having them taken up with accounts of emerald rings, crane feathers, and other vanities that his corre spondent required to make him attractive to the female population of Nurnberg. How would it be if you stuck a goose-quill in your hat, you immoral old pedant ! Agnes Frey is evidently very angry at her husband's protracted stay in Venice, and we cannot suppose that Pirkheimer made matters any better by his mediation ; indeed, he tells us himself that he never received anything but ingratitude (Undank) for his advice, and warnings to her " of what the end of it would be." Probably not ; it is pro verbially an unthankful office to interfere in matrimonial quarrels, and we can well imagine that the pompous speeches and conceited manner of the philosopher were not calculated to soothe Agnes's indignation, or to pour the oil of peace on the troubled waters that separated her from her husband. Indeed, one can scarcely help seeing, that although Diirer might recognise his friend's wisdom fully, that yet he ought not to have left him to "arrange his business" with his mistress of accounts. One is glad to find that one accusation that has been brought against Diirer — that he left his wife and mother unprovided for in Niirnberg whilst he enjoyed himself in Venice — has, at all events, no foundation. They do not seem to have had any great super fluity of money for their household expenses, but neither had he in Venice ; and in almost every letter to Pirkheimer there is some reference to the state of money matters at home — either the wife or M 2 84 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. the mother need money, which he requests Pirkheimer to lend them until he returns, when he will honourably repay him ; or he mentions having sent them a remittance ; or, as in Letter VII., he tells Pirk heimer not to lend them any more, as they "have money enough." It is plain, from his remarks on this subject, that the mother and the wife had separate interests and housekeeping expenses ; but they must have both depended entirely on him for their support, as did also his younger brother Hans. Andreas, it will be noticed, has been ill, but has now come to Venice. He also has "great want of money," and his artist brother lends him eight ducats, and with truly kind feeling requests Pirk heimer not to take any notice of this loan for fear his brother should think he had spoken of it " from want of confidence." It is tolerably certain that Durer never went to Rome, although many of his biographers have thought that at some period of his life he did. There is not, however, the smallest evidence to show that he was ever in Italy, except at this time. The king here spoken of is the Emperor Maximilian. LETTER VII. Most learned, classical, wise, many-languages-knowing, truth-from- falsehood-quickly-recognising, honourable and highly-esteemed Herr Willibald Pirkheimer, your humble servant, Albrecht Diirer, wishes you health and great honour cu Diawulo tanto pella tyansa chi tene pare. To vole denegiare cor woster. You would think I also was an orator of ioo partire (partite). A room must have more than four corners to place in it all the images of memory. I will not impare my caw (capo — bother my head) with them, for I think there are not so many chambers in the head as to allow you to keep something in each. The Margrave will not give so long an audience, ioo articles and every article ioo words would need 9 days 7 hours and 52 minutes, without counting the suspiry (sospiri, sighs), therefore you will not become an orator all at once. Item : I have done my utmost about the carpets, but I have not LETTER VII. 85 been able to find any broad enough ; they are all narrow and long, but I will still make inquiries for them, as will also Anthony Kolb. I have given Bernhard Hirschvogel1 your greeting, and he desires his service to you. He is in great affliction, for his son is dead, the nicest youth that I have ever seen. Item : I cannot get any fool's feathers. Oh, if you were here, what would you think of the fine Welsch soldiers ! I often think of you, and wish that you and Kunz Kamece could see them.1 They have spears with 218 spikes, so that if they only touch a soldier with them he dies, for they are all poisoned. The Venetians are preparing for war, as well as the Pope, and also the King of France. What it means I do not know. They laugh at our king (i.e. Maximilian). Item : Wish Stephen Baumgartner much happiness for me. I am not surprised to hear that he has taken a wife. Greet Herr Lorentz for me, and our pretty servants, and also your mistress of accounts, and thank your servant-maid for having greeted me. Tell her she is a slut. I have sent off your olive-tree wood from Venice to Augsburg. There it will lie, 10 hundred weight. Item : Know that my picture says you would give a ducat to see it. It is very good and beautiful in colour. I have gained great praise for it, but very little profit. I could well have earned 200 ducats in the time, and have refused great works in order that I may return home. And I have given all the painters a rubbing down2 who said that I was good in engraving, but that in painting I did not know how to use my colours. Now everybody says they never saw more beautiful colouring. Item: My French mantle desires to greet you, as does also my Welsch coat. Item : I smell out what you are after even at this distance.3 They tell me, when you go courting, you give it 1 No doubt one of the family of Hirschvogel, the celebrated glass-painters of Nurnberg. 2 Von Campe reads this word gestillt, silenced. He says the word gestriegell, which is equivalent to our expression " a rubbing down," or " a dressing,'' was not in use in Durer's time. 3 The whole of this " item '' is too coarse for translation. Von Murr illustrates it by a passage from Swift which is nearly as bad. Diirer lived, it must be re membered, two centuries before Swift, and there is therefore more excuse for his occasional coarseness. But, upon the other hand, Von Murr scarcely appreciates 86 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. out that you are not more than 25 years old. Double it, and I will believe you. Item : The Doge and the Patriarch have also been to see my picture. Herewith I remain your servant to command. I must really go to bed, for it is now striking seven in the night ; for I have already written whole sheets full to the Augustine Prior (Eucharius Karl), to my father-in-law, to the trittrichin, and to my wife; besides, I have been in haste, so read this according to the sense. You, who speak to princes, can improve it. Many good nights to you, and days also. Given at Venice on the day of our Lady in September (September 8). Item: You need not lend my wife, or my mother, anything more. They have money enough. Albrecht Durer. The mock respect and humility of the beginning of this letter need some- explanation. In 1506 Pirkheimer, we find, was appointed with three other Rathsherrn of Nurnberg (namely, Ulrich Nadler, Georg Holzschuher, and Caspar Nutzel) to represent the town of Nurnberg at a meeting of the Suabian League at Donauworth, and he had in his character of ambassador to deliver a long address to the Margrave Friedrich von Brandenburg. Probably he had evinced some conceit in his letter to Diirer at the honour that had been conferred upon him, and had doubtless dilated on the- eloquent speech he had made before the Margrave, for Diirer exclaims in allusion to his own burst of mock oratory on the occasion, " One would think I also was an orator of 100 parts." Curiously enough, a report of this speech of Pirkheimer's has been preserved amongst the Niirnberg archives.1 As one report of it takes up eleven folio sheets, perhaps Durer's reckoning of the time taken in its delivery may not be so excessive after all, "without counting the sighs," which must, one would imagine, have come pretty often both to the orator and the listener. the great English wit, when he says of this and Letter IX. that they are " written very much in Swift's humour ! " 1 Vide Von Murr, vol. x. The document (Deductionschrift) relating to this circumstance, is entitled " Handlung zwischen Marggrave Friderichen zu Branden burg vnd einem Erbern Rate der Stat Nuremberg vor der Versamlung zu Werde beschehen, 1 506." MANUSCRIPT OF LETTER VIII. 87 Has Diirer been reading metaphysics that he gives his opinion on such an important question as the chambers of the brain ? " A room must have more than four corners to place in it all the images of memory " (gedechtnus gotzen). Pirkheimer himself, that learned meta physician, could not have expressed the difficulty with greater aptness. The power of Venice at this period was enormous. Her commerce extended half over the then known world, and her selfish state policy had been eminently successful in securing the greatest advantages to herself from the endless wars then going on in Italy. The Emperor Maximilian ever sought to curb this encroaching spirit, and even urged on the other powers of Europe the necessity of the destruction of this great power ; attributing most of the evils in Italy to the crafty policy and lust of conquest manifested by Venice. But the proud Venetians had no fear of the noble but impracticable Emperor. "They laugh at our king" (Den miser kunigs spott man ser), writes Diirer, who does not seem to occupy himself very much with the wars and rumours of wars by which he is surrounded, but branches off from this subject to send congratulations to his friend Stephen Baumgartner on the occasion of his marriage, and also to inform one of Pirkheimer's domestics, of whom he draws a most fascinating likeness, that "she is a slut." There is evidently some allusion here that might have amused Pirkheimer, but which is quite unintelligible to us. The manuscript of the following letter has only recently been discovered amongst Durer's papers in the British Museum. It must by some means or other have got separated from the rest of the corre spondence and stowed, away with the drawings, writings, &c. of the Imhof collection that finally passed into the possession of Sir Hans Sloane, and by his bequest to the British Museum. Neither Von Murr nor Campe were aware of its existence, but Dr. Waagen printed it in a German review in 1864.1 The translation here given is not, however, from the printed text but from the original manuscript, and has been made by Dr. Wright of the British Museum, who has kindly assisted me likewise in the interpretation of several difficult passages in these letters. The letter, as will be seen, is not quite perfect ; the beginning and end having been lost, and words here and there being quite unintelli- 1 In "Rccensionen und Mitthcilungen iibcr bildcnde Kunst," No. 19. Wien, 1864. 88 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. gible, but it forms a most important link in the series, for in it Durer at last announces the completion of his picture for the German Company, which he has mentioned so frequently in the preceding letters. It has always been supposed that there must have been a letter lost in which he told Pirkheimer of the completion of this great painting, and this discovery has proved that conjecture in this instance was not wrong. LETTER VIII. I have received in your, which informs me of the super abundant praise that you have received from nobles and princes. You must have quite changed to have become so gentle. It will affect me in the same way when I come to you. Know also that my picture is ready, as well as another painting, the like of which I have never yet made, and which will be well pleasing to you also. Thus I give myself herewith to understand 1 that there is no better picture of the Virgin Mary in the land, because all the artists praise it as well as the nobility. They say they have never seen a more sublime, a more charming painting.2 Item : Your Olla, about which you wrote, I send you by the Pewterer's messenger. Also let me know for certain that the burnt glass (vitrum ustrum) which I send you by the Dyer's messenger has come to hand. Item : Regarding the carpets, I have not yet bought any because I cannot manage to procure such as are square, for they are all narrow and long. If you want any of these, I will gladly buy them. Let me know about this. Also know that I shall be ready in four weeks at the farthest, because I have still to take the portraits of some to whom I have given the promise ; and in order to come quickly, I have, since my picture was finished, declined work to the amount of more than 2,000 ducats. All who dwell around me know that. Herewith I commend myself unto you. I had still much to write to you, but the messenger 1 Does he mean, " Allow myself to believe " ? — M. M. H. 2 All this evidently refers to the painting of " The Feast of the Rose Garlands," and not to any other painting ; indeed, the allusion to another is very obscure, and 1 think doubtful.— M. M. 11. LETTER IX. 89 is ready to start. I hope, please God, soon to be with you myself, and to learn new wisdom from you. Bernhard Holtzbock has spoken to me in the highest terms of you ; but I think he does so because you are now become his brother-in-law. But nothing makes me more angry than their saying you have become handsome ! In that case I should become ugly ! It is like to drive me mad ! I have actually found a grey hair that has grown on my head out of sheer sorrow and because I fret so. I think I am born to ill-luck. My French cloak, the ... . dressing-gown, and the brown coat greet you well, but I would fain see what your Dated 1506, on the Wednesday after St. Matthew (Sept. 23). Albrecht Durer.1 LETTER IX. You know that you have my willing service, therefore there is no need to write it to you ; but I must tell you the great joy I have in the great honour and glory that you have attained through your mani fold wisdom and learning. This is the more wonderful, as such gifts are seldom or never found in so young a man, but it comes by the especial grace of God, as it does also with me. How well we have both done, as we imagine — I with my picture, and you cun woster (con vostra), wisdom; so when people glorify us, we stretch out our necks, and believe them, but some bad spirit (lecker) stands perhaps behind who mocks at us. Therefore do not believe those who praise you. I think I see you standing before the Margrave making the most beautiful speeches, bowing and cringing, just as you do when you go to see the Rosen- thalerin. I perceive quite well from what you have written that you are quite taken up with worthless women. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, old as you are ; you yet think yourself attractive, but such behaviour becomes you as much as a great shaggy dog playing with a young kitten. If you were as fine as I am, it might be believed of you ; but as soon as I am Burgermeister I will have you shut up in 1 This letter is now exhibited in a glass case in the King's Library. N 90 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. prison as well as the rech, the Ros dy gart, the por, and many more whom I will not name for shortness' sake, but whom you will under stand. But I am more inquired after than you, according to what you yourself write, that both worthless and pious women often ask after me. It is a sign of my virtue, and if God helps me home again, I know not how I shall live with you, on account of your great wisdom. But I am rejoiced at your virtue and goodness, and also that your dog will have a good time of it, and not get beaten lame any more. But now you have become so highly thought of in the town you will never be seen speaking in the street to that poor painter Durer. It would be a great disgrace cun pultron de peiitor. O. 1. Hr. p. [Oh dear Herr Pirkheimer] just now, whilst I was writing in merry spirits, there came a cry of fire, and six houses are burnt at Peter Pender's. And a piece of woollen cloth of mine is burnt, for which I gave only yesterday eight ducats, so I am also damaged. There are many rumours of fire here. Item : You write to me that I ought to return soon. I will do so as soon as possible, but I must first earn sufficient for my expenses. I have spent ioo ducats in colours and other things. I have also ordered two carpets, that I must pay for to-morrow, but I have not been able to buy them very cheap. I will pack them up with my things. And as you wrote to me that if I did not come soon you would seduce my wife, it is not allowed ; but I tell you that if you do, you may keep her until death.1 Item : Know that I have begun to learn dancing, and that I have been twice to the school, where I was obliged to give a ducat to the master, but no one shall make me go there again ; I should soon have lost all that I have gained, and should not have been able to do anything in the end.2 The next messenger will take you your vitrum ustrum. Item : I cannot hear that they have printed anything new in Greek ; also I will enclose you a ream of paper; but I cannot procure any feathers such as you want, but I have bought some small white feathers, and if I see any grey ones I will buy them, and bring them with me. 1 " Und als Ir schreibt ich soil paid kumen oder Ir wolt mirs weib kristirn ist ewch vnerlawbt, Ir prawt sy den zw thott." " Ich wolt wohl alles daz ferlert haben daz ich gewunen hett vnd hette danocht awff dy lctz nix kiint." LETTER IX. 91 Item : Stephen Baumgartner has written to me to buy fifty small pieces (korner) of cornelian for a paternoster. I have ordered them, but they are dear. I have not been able to get any bigger, and I will send them to him by the next messenger. Item : I will let you know, as you desire, when I shall be back, so that my Lords (i.e. the Rath) may know what to do. In ten days I shall have finished here. Then I shall go on horseback to Bologna, for the sake of my art, because some one there will teach me the secret art of perspective ; after staying eight or ten days there, I shall ride back again to Venice, and then I will return with the next messenger. Oh, how I shall freeze after this sunshine ! Here I am a gentleman, at home only a parasite. Item. Let me know how the old1 I had still many things to write to you, but I shall soon be with you. Given at Venice, I know not what day of the month, but about fourteen days after Michaelmas, in the year 1506. Albrecht Durer. Item : When will you let me know whether you also have lost any children?2 You have written to me on one occasion that Joseph Rumell has married somebody's daughter, but you do not write- whose. How should I know what you mean ? Had I but got my cloth again ! I fear my mantle is also burnt ; if so, I should go out of my mind. I am doomed to ill-luck ! Only three weeks ago a debtor ran away with viii ducats owing to me. This time Diirer congratulates his friend in sober "earnest, and has " great joy " in his success ; reminding him, however, _that his wisdom comes by the especial grace of God, and therefore there is no occasion to be puffed up by men's praise. He takes the truth of this home to him self also. " How well we have both done, as we imagine," he writes, " I with my picture, and you with your wisdom ;"_but " vanitas' 'vanitatum ! 1 The whole of this sentence reads as follows : — "Last mich wissen wy daz alt kormerle zw prawten sey daz Ir mirs als woll giint."^ I cannot find the meaning of kormerle. 8 This sentence is very obscure. Pirkheimer had only two daughters, both of whom were certainly alive at this. time. If he hadTost any children, they must have been illegitimate. N 2 92 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. Do not let us believe too much when people glorify us, for a mocking devil is still lurking behind." Diirer at least does not deal much in flattery to the great ambassador, whom he again reproves in very uncompromising language for his immoral conduct, censuring it, how ever, more from the ludicrous point of view— "a shaggy dog playing with a young kitten"— than from any high ground of virtuous in dignation. Perhaps he considered that Pirkheimer would be more open to ridicule than to reproof. One can scarcely imagine the thoughtful and mystic poet of Melencolia learning his steps from a Venetian dancing-master ; but the lightness of his heart during this pleasant sojourn in Venice seems on this occasion to have run over into his finely-formed limbs, and, aided most likely by the force of example, to have prompted him to acquire the fashionable accomplishment. He got tired of it, however, after two lessons, and was evidently disgusted at having wasted his ducat. "No one," he exclaims emphatically, "shall make me go there again," as if he had been over-persuaded in the first instance to such an unaccustomed proceeding. The question of his return to Nurnberg now becomes urgent, and Pirkheimer is evidently very desirous for him to come home. It is painful to notice Durer's delays and reluctance to return, for they tell us but too plainly that he had not much hope of happiness awaiting him in his native town. Most bitter indeed is the exclamation that seems, as it were, forced from him at the prospect of leaving the brilliant city where he had found so many appreciative friends. " Oh, how I shall freeze after this sunshine ! Here I am a gentleman, at home only a parasite ! " Yet he could not make up his mind, as Holbein did under similar circumstances, to desert the country that had given him birth, and to accept employment in a foreign state. We learn from a letter that he wrote at a later date to the Rath of Nurnberg, that had he been willing to have remained in Venice, he might have had a pension of 200 ducats1 a year from the Government, whereas as he remarks he never received so much as a hundred florins from his native town ; yet from some cause or other, either from a sense of duty, or from that mysterious feeling of " Heimweh " that impels so many affectionate natures like Durer's towards the scenes of their early recollections, he gave up the brilliant career that no doubt might have been his in the 1 About ninety pounds of our present money. VISIT TO BOLOGNA. 93 gorgeous city of Venice, and returned like a true child of the North to accept the prophet's small dole of honour in his own country. It is strange to think that, had he elected to have remained at this time in Venice, his name would have been added to that great constellation of painters that shone with the deep glory of purple and gold over the Venice of the sixteenth century. Would he, in such a case, have become eventually absorbed into the sensuous colour-school of the South ; or would he, even in the presence of the glowing giant of Venetian art, the "glorious Titian," have preserved his own individuality of mind, and have still been known to the world as the artist of thought rather than as the painter of vigorous life and sensuous beauty ? The question is difficult to decide, but seeing the fatal consequences that have so often accrued to artists who have deserted their own national mode of expression for' the language of a foreign country, it is perhaps a matter of rejoicing that our Teutonic artist was not for any great length of time subjected to such a temptation. We should probably not have gained another Titian, and we might have lost an Albrecht Durer! We know that Diirer carried out his intention of going to Bologna, where he was received with much honour, but whether he acquired any further knowledge of the " secret art of perspective " whilst there does not appear ; at all events he impressed his countryman, Christopher Scheurl, whose acquaintance, as we have before stated, he made during this visit, with his uprightness of character and obliging disposition. Camerarius tells us that Diirer fully intended to have gone on from Bologna to Mantua, in order to see and pay his respects to the Italian master Andrea Mantegna, who was still living, though of a great age ; but before he could do so, Mantegna died, an event which, Diirer after wards told Camerarius, "caused him more grief than any mischance that had befallen him during his life." CHAPTER V. 1507 — 1520, " He had ever those perennial fire-proof joys called employments." Jean Paul (Carlyle's Translation). DuRER, unfortunately, has not left us any account of his personal history or mode of life in Nurnberg during the years that elapsed between his return from Venice in 1507, and his journey to the Nether lands in 1520; we can however judge, from the enormous number of works that he accomplished within this period, that his life, like that of his father the good old goldsmith before him, must have been one of " constant and hard toil." Idleness, indeed, does not seem to have been a vice known to those old Niirnbergers ; each one of them ate his bread in the sweat of his brow, and enjoyed it all the more for that reason, thus turning " God's curse into man's blessing." We must therefore imagine Diirer at work during these years from morning until night in his workshop, surrounded by numbers of pupils, apprentices, and workmen ; some occupied in grinding colours, others in preparing panels for painting, others, probably, in cutting the blocks of the wood-engravings, and others, the most fortunate of all, in listen ing to the words of wisdom and instruction that dropped from the lips of the master. A busy and happy mediaeval scene ; such an one as Diirer himself was introduced into on St. Andrew's day i486, when he first entered the service of Michael Wohlgemuth. Durer's school does not seem ever to have been as large as Wohlgemuth's— he did not, that is to say, carry on that master's extensive manufacture of pictures; but after Wohlgemuth's death it was certainly the principal Art school in Nurnberg, and Diirer numbered amongst his pupils many excellent artists. YEARS OF QUIET WORK. 95 But the master, we may well suppose, was fain to escape sometimes from the noise and bustle of the workshop and the school to the quiet and peace of his own studio. There, like his own Melencolia, he would sit brooding in silence over the mysteries of the universe ; or peopling his dreary room with the bright children of his imagination till it would no longer seem dreary to him, but full of fantastic forms and images, such as he has drawn in so many of his works. But even in his own studio he was not always safe, it is said, from the disturbing influence of his household. There was formerly, it appears, a small grated opening in the ceiling of this room which com municated with the room immediately above it, and through this opening, tradition affirms, the harsh reality of his work-a-day existence used to look down at the musing artist, through the unsympathetic eyes of his wife, who took advantage of this peep-hole to spy her husband at his work, giving admonitory taps with her foot whenever he seemed to her to be idle. Tradition certainly has tried hard to make up for Durer's silence concerning his wife, but even tradition must have been somewhat unusually destitute of material, when it could find no more probable scandal than this against the Diirerin. But although this story of the spy-hole is probably utterly false as a matter of fact, it is true enough, it is to be feared, if we accept it in a symbolical sense. Just through such a narrow grating of prejudice and suspicion do mean and low natures view the great souls of the earth with whom they come in contact, but whom they are incapable of comprehending. That a hero is not a hero to his valet, is a worse fact for the valet than the hero ; and still sadder is it when a great and noble man is not a hero to his wife, when she looks not at the everlasting significance of his life and work, but simply at their temporal and prudential use. This seems to have been Agnes Frey's method of viewing her husband's work. She understood only the money value that it possessed, and " urged him day and night " only towards such work as she deemed would bring in the most money. The dear pious old mother whom, as we have seen, Diirer had taken to live with him two years after his father's death, because she was then " quite poor," doubtless exercised a purifying and loving influence in the household of her son, for she appears, from what he records of her, to have been a gentle and charitable woman, whose life was devoted to her God and her children, bearing all things with patience, and 96 LLFE OF ALBRECH1 DURER. endeavouring no doubt to make her son Albrecht's life as harmonious as she could. But in 1 5 14 this good mother was taken away from her loving son. In the fragment of the note-book already mentioned he gives the following account of her life and Christian death. The simple narrative is so touching and reveals to us so much of the character both of mother and son, that I offer no excuse for giving it in full, although it contains little more than what the reader already knows : — "Now you must know that in the year 1513, on a Tuesday in Cross-week, my poor unhappy mother, whom I had taken under my charge two years after my father's death, because she was then quite poor, and who had lived with me for nine years, was taken ill unto death (tottlich Kranck) on one morning early, so that we had to break open her room, for we knew not, as she could not get up, what to do. So we bore her down into a room, and she had the sacraments in both kinds administered to her, for every one thought that she was going to die, for she had been failing in health ever since my father's death, and her custom was to go often to church ; and she always punished me when I did not act rightly, and she always took great care to keep me and my brothers from sin, and whether >I went in or out, her constant word was ' In the name of Christ,' and with great diligence she constantly gave us holy exhortations, and had great care over our souls. And her good works, and the loving compassion that she showed to every one, I can never sufficiently set forth to her praise. " This my good mother bore and brought up eighteen children ; she has often had the pestilence and many other dangerous and remarkable illnesses ; has suffered great poverty, scoffing, disparagement, spiteful words, fears, and great reverses." Does he mean that she suffered any of these things from his wife ? " Yet she has never been revengeful. A year after the day on which she was first taken ill, that is, in the year 1514 on a Tuesday, the 17th day of May, two hours before mid night, my pious mother Barbara Diirerin departed in a Christian manner with all sacraments, absolved by Papal power from pain and sin. She gave me her blessing and desired for me God's peace, and that I should keep myself from evil. And she desired also before drinking (i.e. the sacramental wine) St. John's blessing which she had, and she said she was not afraid to come before God. But she died hard, and I perceived that she saw something terrible, for she kept hold of the holy HIS MO THER 'S DEA TH. 9 7 water, and did not speak for a long time. I saw also how death came and gave her two great blows on the heart, and how she shut her eye.. and mouth and departed in great sorrow. I prayed for her, and had suchg reat grief for her that I can never express. God be gracious to her ! Her greatest joy was always to speak of God and to do all to His honour and glory. And she was sixty-three years old when she died, and I buried her honourably according to my means. God the Lord grant that I also make a blessed end, and that God with His heavenly hosts and my father, mother, and friend, be present at my end, and that the Almighty God grant us eternal life. Amen. And in her death she looked still more lovely than she was in her life." Before this date — probably in 151 1 — Durer's brother Andreas had returned to Nurnberg, and settled down in the paternal trade.1 Hans Diirer likewise, it may be supposed, was still residing with Albrecht at the time of his mother's death,2 so that the pious old mother had at least the comfort of having the three surviving sons of her eighteen children around her in her last hours, although Diirer does not mention any one but himself. It must have been a great pleasure to Diirer to have his brother Andreas return and settle down respectably in Nurnberg ; for, from the way in which he mentions the young man in one of his letters to Pirkheimer, we dimly perceive that he, as well as Hans, had given the elder brother some anxiety. The year 15 14 — the year in which his mother died — was, as ,*e shall see, one of the most productive years of Durer's genius. Several of his finest and most deeply conceived copper-plates belong to this period ; seemingly as though sorrow had driven him more closely than ever to think and to work. In this year also occurred that pleasant little episode in his life — the interchange of presents and civilities between himself and Raphael 1 A document is preserved in the German Museum, dated Nov. 24, 1518, in which Andreas Durer testifies that "his dear brother Albrecht Thiirer" has paid him his share of the paternal inheritance, the witnesses being WiUibald Pirkheimer and Lazarus Spengler, whose seals are affixed to the deed. The paternal estate seems only to have consisted in the dwelling-house at the corner of the Burg-Gasse. 8 Hans Durer, the seventeenth child and third son of the name of Hans of the Diirer family, was appointed court painter to the King of Poland. I cannot find out in what year he died, but probably before Diirer, as only Andreas seems to have inherited his brother's blocks and copyrights. O Q8 life of albrecht dorer. Santi — between the Artist of the South and the Artist of the North. Their intercourse began by Diirer sending his own portrait to Raphael as a specimen of his art and a testimony of his esteem. This mark of friendship was warmly responded to by Raphael, who at once sent a number of studies and drawings off to Nurnberg, as a present to Diirer. Both artists evidently esteemed the other's work very highly. Of course it is not likely that we should find jealousy between two men of such great but different powers, but still it is pleasant to know that the Italian Poet of Feeling appreciated to the full the German Poet of Thought, and did not, as the more narrow-minded Italian artists of that day were too apt to do, esteem all art as barbarous that was not the expression of the mind of Greece or Italy. The portrait that Diirer gave to Raphael was inherited, after the latter's death, by his pupil and heir, Giulio Romano, who took it with him to Mantua, and, according to Vasari, esteemed it as one of his greatest treasures. It is not known what has become of it. One of the drawings sent by Raphael to Diirer is, however, still preserved in the Albert collection at Vienna, and is authenticated by an inscription on it in Durer's own handwriting, as follows : — 1515. " Raffahell di Urbiu der so hoch peim Pohst geacht ist gewest hat der hat dyse Nackette Bild gemacht und hat sy dem Albrecht Diirer gen Noruberg geschickt Im sein hand zu weiseu." (Raphael di Urbino, who is so highly esteemed by the Pope, has drawn this study from the nude, and has sent it to Albrecht Durer at Nurnberg, in order to show him his hand — i.e. his manner of drawing.) This "Nackette Bild" (Naked Picture) is executed in red crayon, and represents two naked men-figures, the one seen from behind, the other from the side, with the head of a third slightly sketched out in the background. It is boldly drawn, and was probably a more acceptable present to Durer, who as we know was greatly interested in the anatomy of the human figure, than even a Raphael Madonna and Child would have been. In contradistinction to this respect paid him by a great foreigner, we find that in the next year, 1515, one of his fellow-townsmen, a JO URNE Y TO A UGSB URG. 99 certain Jorg Vierling, of Kleinreuth, near Nurnberg, was put into prison by the Rath of Nurnberg for having uttered disgraceful libels against Diirer, and even having struck him and threatened him in consequence of some quarrel between them, the cause of which is not known. Vierling would not only have been imprisoned but punished in other ways, had not Diirer, with the kindness of heart to which all his biographers bear witness, and of which this little incident is in itself a sufficient proof, interceded with the Rath for his enemy, and obtained his deliverance from prison ; not, however, without his rela tions giving security in person and estate (mit Leib und Gut) that he should keep the peace against Diirer and all concerned.1 In 1518 Diirer went to Augsburg, at the time when the Imperial Diet was held there, most likely with- the view of finding a good sale for his woodcuts and engravings amongst the large concourse of people of all ranks assembled on such occasions. He had the good fortune, whilst he was there, to obtain a sitting from the Emperor Maximilian. This we learn from an inscription on a portrait of the Emperor, drawn by Diirer at this time, and from which the well-known woodcut appears to have been executed. The inscription states : "Das ist kaiser Maximilian den hab ich Albrecht Diirer zu Augs- purg hoch oben A uff die pfalz in seine kleine stiibli kunterfekt do man zah 15 18 am Montag nach Johannis tawffer." (This is the Emperor Maximilian, whom I, Albrecht Diirer, drew at Augsburg, in his little room high up in the imperial residence, in the year 1518, on the Monday after St. John the Baptist.) At the same time, probably, he obtained from the Emperor, who as we shall see, was greatly in his debt, an order to the Rath of Nurnberg to pay 200 gulden out of the town rates " to the Emperor's and the Empire's dear and faithful Albrecht Diirer."2 Besides this portrait of the Emperor, Diirer made a number of other sketches during his visit to Augsburg, most of which, as well as many of those taken during his tour in the Netherlands, came eventually into the possession of Joseph Heller, the learned and laborious author of the work so often quoted. 1 Baader, " Bcitragc zur Kunstgcschichte Niimbcrgs, Zwcitc Rcihc." 1 See Part II. chap. ii. O 2 ioo LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. The history of the two sketch-books (Bilderbucher) that Diirer made use of on these two journeys is somewhat interesting and remarkable. It appears that soon after his death they passed into the hands of a noble Niirnberg family,1 that highly esteemed his works, and for the members of which he had often executed small commissions. But after a generation or two the descendants of this family seem to have for gotten or to have been unaware of the art treasures they possessed, and Diirer's Bilderbucher were stowed away amongst family documents, and remained totally hidden for more than two hundred years. No one even in Nurnberg appears to have been aware of their existence, and it was not until the beginning of the present century, when the family became extinct, and the property it possessed passed into other hands, that these two books again came to light. They were then fortunately obtained by that well-known collector and antiquarian, the old Baron von Derschau,2 who afterwards sold part of the drawings to Herr von Nagler, and the other part to Joseph Heller, who has given a detailed description of them in his work. Those formerly belonging to Nagler are now at Berlin, the Prussian Government having purchased the whole of his collection ; whilst Heller's collection is still preserved in the Bamberg Library. 1 It is supposed through the medium of his brother Andreas, who appears to have had business dealings with this family, probably the Pfinzing. 2 The Baron, according to his own account, seems also to have had possession at one time of Durer's Journal ; for Dibdin tells us in his " Bibliographical Tour," that when he visited the old man, " he commenced his work of incantation by informing him that he once possessed the Journal or Day-book of Albert Durer, written in the German language, and replete with the most curious information respecting the manner of his own operations, and those of his workmen. From this journal it appeared that Albert Diirer was in the habit of drawing upon the blocks, and that his men performed the remaining operation of cutting away the wood" .... " On my eagerly inquiring," says Dibdin, " what had become of this precious volume, the Baron replied with a sigh, which seemed to come from the very bottom of his heart, that it had perished in the flames of a house in the neighbourhood of one of the battles fought between Buonaparte and the Prussians." (See Dibdin's " Biblio graphical Tour," vol. iii.) This circumstantial story certainly sounds authentic, but. in spite of Dibdin's assurance that the Baron was " a man both of veracity and virtu," it cannot unfortunately be accepted on his bare word, for it is known that the Baron's " virtu" sometimes got the better of his "veracity." There is no such account of the manner of Durer's operations in woodcutting in the journal that has been handed down to us, so that, if there ever was such a volume, it must have been some other record kept at a different period of his life. DURER'S FRIENDS IN NURNBERG. 101 Diirer himself refers several times in his journal to these sketch books. For instance, he records at Aix la Chapelle : " In my own Bilderbuch I have drawn Paul Topler and Martin Pfinzing;" and again, "Jean de Has his wife and two daughters I have drawn with charcoal, and the maid and old woman with crayons in my little book (Buchlein)!' A portrait of Paul Topler, and another of one of the daughters of Jean de Has, occur in Heller's catalogue, but they do not seem to be those mentioned here. Most of these interesting drawings are roughly and slightly sketched, either in charcoal or crayon, and were evidently intended by Diirer merely as reminiscences of the distinguished men he had become acquainted with during his journeys, and of any noteworthy object or person that struck his artist's fancy. We can imagine the pleasure he would have in showing these hasty jottings down of his pencil to his friend Pirkheimer on his return home, and the somewhat patron ising manner with which the more learned and more experienced Willibald would listen to his friend's simple recital of the wonders he had seen in foreign towns. But besides Firkheimer, who, in spite of his pedantry, always remained a real and faithful friend to the companion of his boyhood, there were other distinguished men in Nurnberg who were proud to receive their artist into their homes, and with whose families he appears to have been on terms of social intimacy. In his letters he constantly mentions names that are amongst the most honourable in his native town, sending his greeting for instance to Stephen Baumgartner, Hans Volkamer, Hans Harsdorfer, and to the Augustine Prior, Eucharius Karl, all of whom belonged to the highest patrician families of Nurnberg. Lazarus Spengler also, the clever Secretary to the Rath of Niirnberg, "who set the whole state machine in motion," was an intimate friend both of Pirkheimer's and Durer's, and his society must have contributed a very agreeable and sparkling element in the learned gatherings at Pirkheimer's house ; so that although I have designated these years from 1507 to 1520 as years of constant and hard work, we must not imagine that it was all work and no play for our poor artist, but must think of him as escaping sometimes from the narrow and depressing influence of his own home, and from the pressure of daily toil, to seek relaxation and food for his thought and imagination amongst the most intellectual society that his native town afforded. 102 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. It is now time to turn from these details of Durer's personal history to the consideration of his work as an artist. We have indeed, as I have before said, no knowledge of his life during the years that elapsed between his residence in Venice, in 1506-7, and his journey to the Netherlands in 1520, except in so far as we gain it from his works. In these, therefore, it becomes necessary to study it, if we would learn anything of its true value. Nor is this study at all a hopeless one, for Durer's art is not a thing apart from his life, it is not a mere handicraft or extrinsic faculty, but it is the expression of his deepest nature, the means that he adopted for giving outward shape to the noblest con ceptions of his mind. PART II. WORKS. " Not what I Have, but what I Do is my kingdom." Carlyle. CHAPTER I. ENGRAVINGS ON WOOD. " There are people who, because they do not see at once in a great work of art all that they are told is there, satisfy themselves that therefore it does not exist." Mrs. Jameson. HELLER enumerates no fewer than one hundred and seventy-four wood- engravings by Diirer, and there are many more which bear his mark and are ascribed by other writers to him. Engraving, or rather designing on wood, was indeed the readiest means that his prolific mind could find for expressing the thoughts that arose in it ; and accordingly, from the beginning to the end of his artistic life, he made use of this means for multiplying and disseminating his ideas. Thus it has happened that Diirer has done more for the art of wood-engraving than any other artist before or since. Before his time no artist had ever employed it for the expression of any great thought : representa tions of saints and small illustrations to religious books having been the only subjects entrusted to the hands of the wood-engraver. It is not my intention in this chapter to enter at any length on the long-disputed question as to whether Diirer really engraved with his own hands the woodcuts that bear his monogram, or whether he merely drew the designs for them on the wood, leaving the more mechanical part of the work to be executed by the Formschneider (wood-engravers) of Nurnberg. Prior to the present century, the former was the generally received opinion on the subject j1 but of 1 Von Murr, for instance, *' wonders how any one can doubt that Diirer executed his own woodcuts." (Journ. vol. viii.) P 106 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. late the opposite view has been steadily gaining ground, and it has been supported by such powerful arguments that it is now almost universally accepted by writers on the subject. This latter view was adopted by Bartsch, who states his opinion in the following words : — " If Diirer had himself engraved on wood, it is probable that amongst the numerous and circumstantial accounts that he has left us of his life, his occupations, and the various kinds of work on which he was employed, that the fact of his having also applied himself to wood-engraving would certainly have been transmitted to us in a manner no less explicit ; but far from finding any trace of this, everything that relates to the subject proves that he never employed himself at all in this kind of work. He always appears as a painter, a designer, an editor of works engraved on wood, but never as a wood-engraver." 1 Dr. von Eye likewise argues that to assume that Diirer must have been an excellent engraver on wood just because he was a great artist, is about as foolish as to conclude that Shakspeare was a clever theatrical tailor because he was a great dramatist. "Any person," he says, "who has ever taken a graver in his own hand, would certainly, out of compassion for the poor artist, have spared him this deadly amount of work." But the principal argument against the idea that Diirer cut his own blocks is furnished by Jackson,2 whose technical knowledge on the subject enables him to speak with much authority, and renders his opinion of the highest importance. One of the chief grounds on which the supporters of the older view rested their assumptions was, that there were no wood-engravers in Durer's time capable of cutting the fine cross-hatching that he has so frequently introduced into his cuts. But Jackson brings forward this same cross-hatching as an argument on the other side, and affirms that any wood-engraver of any repute of the present day could produce apprentices capable of cutting fac-similes of any cross-hatching to be met with in Durer's work. Its production, in fact, seems to be a mere question of patient labour, and by no means a proof of any great genius or skill. 1 Bartsch, " Peintre Graveur." 8 Jackson and Chatto, " Hist, of Wood Engraving." DID D URER CUT HIS 0 WN BLOCKS 1 ic 7 It is therefore, as Jackson points out, extremely unlikely that Durer would have resorted so constantly to this mode of work had he been compelled to execute the mechanical portion of it himself; for although cross-hatching is the readiest means of producing an effect to the artist who draws on the block, it is attended with an immense amount of labour to the workman who cuts it; and it is at all events probable that if Durer had been forced to engrave his own designs, he would have endeavoured to gain his object by means which were easier, or less tedious of execution. But although I agree in the main with Jackson, that it is extremely improbable, indeed almost impossible, that Durer could have engraved all the woodcuts that bear his mark, I think, on the other hand, that it is too much to assume that he engraved none of them. Wood-engraving and wood-carving (Bildschnitzerei) we know for certain were carried on to a considerable extent in Wohlgemuth's workshop ; and even if Wohlgemuth himself never engraved on wood, as some writers have asserted, yet it is very unlikely that an apprentice such as Albrecht Diirer would have remained four years in his service without acquiring some knowledge of the art. Many critics, indeed, have supposed that he tried his " 'prentice hand " on some of the cuts of the celebrated " Niirnberg Chronicle," which was published in 1493 under the superintendence of Wohlgemuth and Wilhelm Pleydenwurf. This supposition certainly does not tend to increase his reputation, for the cuts in this work are in general so badly designed and executed that, if we assume that Diirer engraved them, it is an argument against, rather than for the assumption that he cut his own blocks. But be this as it may, it is only reasonable to suppose that an artist who could produce such exquisitely delicate and beautiful wood- carving as Diirer is known to have executed, should also have been able to engrave upon wood ; and if he were able, it seems strange that he should never have done so ; for, as I have said before, the artists of the fifteenth century did not disdain to do the mechanical part of their work themselves, and Diirer would certainly as soon have been his own Formschneider as not, had he had the time to bestow upon the cutting of his designs. Want of time was, as I imagine, the only cause that prevented him, and this cause was less in operation at the beginning of his career, when his first woodcuts were published, than in his after-life, when he was weighted with P 2 io8 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. numerous commissions, and when great thoughts came surging into his mind faster than he could express them even by much quicker modes than cutting them in wood. If therefore we wish to discover the woodcuts that Diirer not only designed, but probably executed with his own hand (and this does not seem to me so impossible as Jackson thinks it), we should seek for them amongst his earlier and not amongst his later productions. We have indeed the testimony of Neudorfer that Hieronymus Resch, the best Formschneider of his time, cut the blocks for the "Arch of Maximilian," which was the last great work that Diirer designed on wood, and he probably engraved many other of Durer's later designs. The earliest wood-engravings that bear Durer's monogram are the sixteen folio cuts illustrative of the Apocalypse, " Die Heimlich Offen- barung Johanis," which were first published in 1498 ; that is, four years after his marriage and settlement in Nurnberg, and before he had achieved the position that he attained after his journey to Italy. These cuts mark a period in the history of wood-engraving. They are admitted by Jackson to be " much superior to all wood-engravings that had previously appeared, both in design and execution ;" and this superiority is not only due to the nobler artistic spirit in which they are conceived, but also to the bolder and more skilful manner in which they are executed. Durer, indeed, by these illustrations raised the art of wood-engraving to a higher position than it had ever before occupied in Germany, and brought it, so to speak, more into fashion. At the beginning of the sixteenth century many of the greatest artists of that fruitful time made use of this mode of multiplying their works, and the vilely-executed religious woodcuts representing the lives of the saints and other sacred legends, that before that time were in vogue, were superseded by noble works executed in the most masterly manner by artists like Durer, Lucas Cranach, Holbein, Hans Baldung Griin, Hans Lutzelburger, and others. Even Titian, it is affirmed, did not disdain, in one instance, to cast off his glorious garb of colour, and to draw in simple black and white upon the block.1 » On the title-page of a book of costumes, printed in Venice in 1590, it is stated that the illustrations were "done" by Titian; and Papillon, an early writer on wood- engraving, mentions several woodcuts by him. Papillon's statements, however, require to be received with extreme caution, as he has been proved by later and more trust worthy authont.es to have drawn largely on his imagination for his interesting facts WOODCUTS OF THE APOCALYPSE. 109 The demand thus created for skilful Formschneider naturally created a supply, and by the time Diirer published his later works no doubt many were to be met with in Nurnberg capable of cuttihg even his magnificent designs ; but at the early period (1498) when the cuts of the Apocalypse appeared, I doubt very much, in spite of Jackson's assertions to the contrary, whether any working Formschneider in Nurnberg was sufficiently master of his art to be able to express the thoughts and meaning of the artist so unhesitatingly and powerfully as the engraver, whoever he may be, of these illustrations has done. The striking boldness of the cuts of the Apocalypse, which is due as well to the self-reliant knowledge of the Formschneider as to the free drawing of the designer, first led me to think it probable that Diirer was, in this instance at all events, his own Formschneider, and afterwards my opinion was greatly strengthened by the study of some very early impressions of these cuts in the possession of Herr Cornill d'Orville, of Frankfort.1 These impressions were probably struck off as trial proofs, even before the edition of 1498. They have no letter-press at the back, but, unlike the later impressions without letter press, every line is as firm and distinct as in the original drawing on the block ; the bold hand and confident knowledge of an artist is indeed much more distinctly visible in these illustrations than the mechanical skill and accuracy of a good engraver ; and this we should naturally expect if, as I think, Diirer not only designed but executed 1 One of the finest collections of Durer's woodcuts in Europe, perhaps I might say the finest, is that of Herr Cornill d'Orville. To the kindness of this gentle man, who took the greatest trouble in showing me all his treasures, I am indebted for my knowledge of several of the rarer woodcuts mentioned in this chapter. Herr Cornill has been a collector of Durer's works during fifty-two years, and is now the possessor of a perfect set of the woodcuts, having added the only one that was wanting to his set (one of the blocks of the great column) but a year or two ago. Not one reasonably authentic cut is missing, and a great many doubtful ones of extreme rarity are included. Herr Cornill has likewise a magnificent collection of the copper engravings (many of them being extremely rare, and some unique copies), several drawings, several manuscripts, and two of Durer's original blocks for wood cuts. His library (I have the most pleasant recollections of the afternoons I spent in it) is almost wholly composed of works by or on Diirer ; indeed the old gentleman is a true Diirer enthusiast, and has spared neither trouble nor money in collecting every scrap of material connected in any way with his hero. It is greatly to be lamented that he has not yet written a history of Durer's works. Even if he would publish the catalogue of his own collection, it would be of immense help to the student, for unfortunately his collection is very little known out of Germany. no LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. the work himself. Added to this intrinsic evidence there is the extrinsic, that even if he could at that time have found a Formschneider capable of cutting his blocks, it is unlikely that he would have been able to pay him for his labour;1 for he published the cuts at his own cost, and would therefore, we may safely assume, be desirous of saving ex pense in such a responsible undertaking. Jackson's .argument respect ing cross-hatching is likewise confirmatory of this view, for there is less cross-hatching in these than in any other of Durer's woodcuts. But it is time to turn from the comparatively unimportant con sideration of the cutting of these designs to the contemplation of the mind which conceived them. It was a bold attempt certainly for a young man to give to the world almost as the first-fruits of his genius his translation into outward shape of the marvellous visions of the Mystic of Patmos. Few besides Albrecht Diirer would have dared to realize the awful dreams recorded by the aged Evangelist, but to Diirer the four Angels of the great river Euphrates prepared to slay the Third Part of Men, the Four Horses and their powerful Riders, the Seven Angels and the plagues that followed the sounding of their trumpets, the Throne of God, the Lamb on Mount Sion, the Woman clothed with the Sun, and the Red Dragon having seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns upon his heads, were visible images, and he has represented them with a vivid force that produces a strange feeling of fascination and awe on those who behold them. The first illustration of the Apocalypse series represents the mar tyrdom of St. John, which, according to tradition, was accomplished by his being boiled in a kettleful of oil. This was a favourite subject of medi-eval art, and Diirer has represented it in the approved and orthodox fashion. St. John sits naked in the kettle or boiler, with flames spring ing forth all round him. An executioner in the foreground quickens the fire with a pair of bellows, whilst another pours the boiling liquid over the Saint. The Emperor Domitian, who has the reputation of having 1 That Diirer could not have had a large choice in the selection of Formschneider is shown by a decree of the Rath, dated July 28, 1571, by which we find that no Formschneider, Briefmaler, or Buchdrucker, was allowed to settle in Niirnberg without permission, and that this permission to set up a workshop in the town was only granted to five book printers, five Formschneider, and six Briefmaler. "Alles aus gulen erhcblichcn bewcglichen Ursachen." (Baader, "Bcitrage zur Kunstgeschiclitc Niirnbcrgs.") THE APOCAL YPSE. t i i invented this ingenious mode of martyrdom, looks on at its accom plishment, and appears somewhat annoyed that the Saint bears his sufferings with so much patience ; he evidently would enjoy the sight more if St. John were to roar well. Some spectators, amongst whom we recognise the stolid German burgher, the man in a turban, and several other well-known Diirer types, regard the scene from the other side of the wall, which cuts straight across the picture, dividing the place of martyrdom, within which is placed the Emperor's throne, from the outer world. This subject has, of course, no proper place amongst the illustrations of the Apocalypse, but Diirer, I suppose, thought that it would give a more practical character to his work, and would please such purchasers as were incapable of understanding the symbolism of the remaining cuts. The conception of the scene is in no way different to other representations of the same subject, for Diirer's imagination was here restrained by the necessity of depicting the event according to esta blished custom.1 The second cut of this series, which is really the first illustration of the Apocalypse," has for its subject, The Vision of the Seven Golden Candlesticks. " And I turned to see the voice that spake with me. And, being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks ; and in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of Man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle. His head and his hair were white like wool, as white as snow ; and his eyes were as a flame of fire." (Revelation i. 12 — 14.) Such is the first symbolic vision of the Seer, and Diirer has rendered it with curious realism. The seven large candlesticks, of the shape common in Catholic churches, surround the Son of Man, who is seated throned on the rainbow, with the book in His left hand, and the seven stars circling round His right, which is uplifted, one star being in the centre of the palm. The figure of the Saviour is of majestic form, clothed in long flowing drapery, and resembling the representations of ancient art. St. John, a powerful young man with long curling hair, which in his amazement has fallen over his forehead, kneels before the 1 A woodcut representing the same subject had already appeared in the German Bible, published by Koberger in 1483. 112 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. throne to receive the Revelation, and does not lie at Christ's feet " as dead," but this is the only point in which Diirer has deviated in the slightest degree from the text of the Apocalypse. The third cut has for its subject the Throne of God with the four and twenty elders, and the four beasts. " And, behold, a throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne. And he that sat was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone : and there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald. And round about the throne were four and twenty seats : and upon the seats I saw four and twenty elders sitting, clothed in white raiment ; and they had on their heads crowns of gold And round about the throne were four beasts full of eyes before and behind. And the first beast was like a lion, and the second beast like a calf, and the third beast had a face as a man, and the fourth beast was like a flying eagle." (Revelation, chaps, iv. v.) St. John surveys this marvellous scene through the open door of heaven. He is already in the clouds, or rather above them, for they float beneath him and separate him from the earth which lies in peace ful, unconscious beauty beneath the stage of the heavenly drama. One of the elders appears to be instructing him in the meaning of the mysteries he beholds. Above the head of the Father are suspended, in a half- circle, the seven lamps of fire, "which are the seven spirits of God," and on his knees lies the Book with seven seals ; the Lamb, who alone is worthy to open the seals thereof, standing upon it. One of the most noteworthy things in this and several of the other cuts is the contrast between the momentous scene enacting above, and the quiet of the earth beneath, unharmed as yet by the terrible plagues that are about to follow the opening of the seals. In the fourth cut (see illustration) four of the seals have been opened. " And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals ; and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see. And I saw, and behold a white horse : and he that sat on him had a bow ; and a crown was given unto him : and he went forth conquering, and to conquer. And when he had opened the second seal, I heard the second beast say, Come and see. And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one THE DESCENT OF THE FOUR HORSES. THE APOCALYPSE. 113 another : and there was given unto him a great sword. And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo a black horse ; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see. And I looked, and behold a pale horse : and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth." This is one of Durer's most powerful creations. What can resist the ' superhuman might of those terrible riders to whom power is given to execute righteous vengeance on the earth ? The horses they ride are of no earthly breed, but go forth like their riders, " conquering and to conquer/' in their God-given strength. There is no exaggeration, no display of the artist's own imaginative powers in this grand rendering of the Vision of St. John. Diirer adheres faithfully to the mystic record, and only gives the aged seer's story an outward form and visible power. But what a form, and what power ! What other artist than Albrecht Diirer could have rendered with such fierce breathing life that awful figure of Death on the pale horse treading down, in avenging wrath, the fourth part of the earth ? Unlike the other riders, who appear urged on by some mighty impulse to fulfil God's judgments on mankind, Death seems driven by fearful demoniac rage. Hell, indeed, follows close behind him in the shape of the wide-opened jaws of a monster into which a king-crowned head is sinking. Even the horse he bestrides betrays a feeling of devilish spite that is quite different to the noble anger of the animal ridden by the rider who swings the balance aloft with powerful outstretched arm. He, the third mighty rider, is, it is true, less calm in his bearing than the other two, but it is because he desires to be swift to execute the sentence that has gone out against a wicked and perverse generation, and not because he feels any fiendish exultation at human misery, like the horrible skeleton beneath him. The rider with the bow, and the rider with the sword likewise, have no thought but the accomplishment of their terrible mission. The execution of this cut is bold and powerful in the extreme. Every stroke tells ; yet there is not nearly the amount of mechanical work in it that there is in most of Durer's later woodcuts. The 0. „4 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. effect, grand as it is, is produced by simple elements. There are only eleven figures in this cut altogether, and of these six are the con demned human beings, who are trampled under the horse of Death. Durer deals here with grander masses and less complicated material than in most of the other cuts of this series, and the effect he produces is more striking than in the more elaborate compositions. The fifth cut represents " The Opening of the Fifth and the Sixth Seals" (Revelation vi. 9—17). The souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held, lie beneath the altar, helpless and naked, until they are clothed in the white robes of imputed righteous ness by the angels of God. Such is the scene in the region of heaven, depicted in the upper portion of the picture; but on the earth, which occupies the lower part, a far different scene is taking place, for punishment has already overtaken the sinful race of man, and they find no place to flee from the wrath of the Lamb, though they call upon mountains and rocks to hide them from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne. The sun and the moon, two faces of sorrowful aspect, are set in the middle space between heaven and earth ; and from the same region the stars fall down flaming and hissing, a mighty rain of heavenly bodies. On the earth Diirer represents all classes of men as overtaken by the same calamities. Not the highest can escape. In the fore ground to the right we see an emperor who raises despairing eyes to heaven ; behind him squats a pope with his triple crown still on his head ; a cardinal, less fortunate, has had his scarlet hat torn off by the storm, and his bare head is exposed. Several other ecclesiastics are also amongst the doomed sinners, a significant circumstance when we consider that this cut was executed twenty years before the Reformation. But judgment falls on lay as well as clergy, on men and women alike ; neither young nor old may be spared. " For the great day of His wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?" The sixth illustration is a very beautiful composition. It repre sents, firstly, the four angels standing on the four corners of the earth holding the four winds; and, secondly, the sealing the elect on their forehead (Revelation vii.). The four angels are of majestic and powerful form, as indeed are the angels generally in these cuts. THE APOCAL YPSE. 1 1 5 Diirer perhaps felt that the graceful and vapoury beings that are often drawn to represent the angelic inhabitants of heaven were not capable of the hard work accorded to them by St. John. The angel to the left seems beating back the wind with a sword that he holds in one hand, and a plate or cymbal in the other. The servants of God are marked witli a cross on their forehead, and here Diirer is by no means invidiously Protestant in his sympa thies, for many Catholic clergy are amongst the elect, and a monk is the one who is being sealed by the angel in the foreground. The next cut (No. 7) continues the vision recorded in chap. vii. of Revelations... The elect with palm branches in their hands, and clothed in white robes, behold the Lamb standing on a rainbow in a glory. The glorified host of saints, with the palm branches, reminds one somewhat of Fra Angelico's similar representations, but Diirer's saints have much more individuality of character, much more muscle, if I may call it so, than Angelico's lovely and holy, but impersonal forms. St. John on the earth, which is separated from heaven by a veil of fleecy clouds, beholds this vision as he kneels on a high promon tory stretching out into the sea. A distant landscape of the quiet beauty that Diirer loved to depict, gives a tender, dreamy expression even to the lower half of the woodcut. No. 8 of the series treats of the sounding of the trumpets (Reve lation viii. and ix.) after the opening of the seventh seal. Four of the trumpets have already sounded, and the plagues that follow their sounding have stricken the earth. The rain of fire, mingled with blood, falls on the grass and the trees ; the mountain of fire is cast into the sea ; the star named Wormwood is about to fall into a well of water ; and the third part of everything is smitten and destroyed. In Durer's representation of this vision God the Father sits on a throne at the top of the cut, dealing out the trumpets to the angels, who have received all but two, which He is in the act of handing to the two angels nearest the throne. The angel with the censer, containing the prayers of the saints, stands at the altar immediately in front of the Father. The two principal angels, with their long trumpets at their mouths, occupy the central space of the picture, together with the darkened visages of sun and moon. The o 2 ! ! 6 LIFE OF ALBRECHT D URER. landscape on earth is partly river or sea, and partly shore. Two great cities doomed to destruction lie on either side of the broad water, in which numerous vessels of all descriptions are suffering ship wreck. An eagle flying over the earth utters the cry of "Woe, woe, woe to the inhabiters of the earth by reason of the other voices of the trumpets of the three angels which are yet to sound ! " No. 9. " The Four Angels of the Great River Euphrates killing the Third Part of Men" (Revelation ix. 13 — 19). This is one of the most celebrated compositions of the series. The four angels, armed with great swords, hew down in ferocious vengeance all ranks of men alike. An emperor and a pope, as in the former illustration, are amongst the number of the slain, and the beggar's rags protect him no better than the emperor's purple. " The angels in this cut," as Von Eye justly remarks, " appear more like furies from out a Greek tragedy than members of that holy company of spirits with which our imagination peoples heaven. But yet even in this respect the artist keeps strictly to the idea of the Evangelist, whose angels are truly destroying angels, driven on by their very nature towards murder." The riders on the lion-headed horses occupy the space immediately above the earth, and the fire, smoke, and brimstone that issue from their mouths destroy those whom the angels have not killed. God the Father, a half figure surrounded by the rainbow, sits above ; to the right and left are the angels of the fifth and sixth trumpets. The sense of movement in this plate is something extraordinary. You feel the rush of those awful lion-headed beasts, and hear the wild tumult of the doomed earth, and the fearful cries that go up to heaven in vain. " The Four Horses " produces the same feeling of rapid motion. No. 10 represents "The Angel with the Column Feet" (Reve lation x.): — "And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud : and a rainbow was on his head, and his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire : and he had in his hand a little book open : and he set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the earth," &c. Durer's extraordinary and powerful rendering of this angel must be seen in order to be conceived. It is impossible to describe so strange a form. At first sight this woodcut strikes us as being grotesque and ludicrous, and one can hardly help laughing at the poor Evangelist THE A TOC A I YPSE. 1 1 7 who kneels on a promontory, and has the extreme right-hand corner of the big book that is presented to him by the angel already in his mouth, and is apparently in great danger of choking with it. This, I say, is the first idea on beholding this illustration, but after a time the solemn earnestness of the artist, and the grandeur of his conception of that mighty angel whose voice " was as the voice of seven thunders," takes hold of the imagination, and one becomes haunted by that mysterious cloud-body, and that awful face breaking forth from the sun. The solid column feet and legs also, that end in flames at the knees, give a most curious appearance to the whole. A sea-monster of dolphin form swims out at sea, and near the shore two peaceful swans are floating along quite unruffled by the strange phenomena around them. No. 11. — Diirer could scarcely help being fantastic in the treat ment of such a subject as "The Woman clothed with the Sun" (Revelation xii. 1 — 5). The woman stands, as St. John describes, with the moon (a crescent moon) under her feet, with the sun in the form of a glory around her, and with a crown of twelve stars upon her head, much in the same way as the Virgin Mary, as Queen of Heaven, is depicted by Catholic art. Yet Diirer, obvious as the inference appears, docs not seem to have intended this woman for the Virgin, for he has added to her form a pair of powerful wings, which he would hardly have done had he meant her to represent the earthly mother of our Lord. She has already been delivered of the child, who is borne up by two angels towards the Father, a half figure in the clouds. The great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads, rages and foams before her, his tail reaching up to the heaven and drawing down the third part of the stars. "Michael and his Angels fighting the Great Dragon" (see illus tration) forms the subject of the twelfth cut (Revelation xii. 7—9). Diirer has adopted quite a different mode of treatment of this subject from that usually employed in the older representations of the arch angel Michael, or his earthly representative St. George. St. Michael, a powerful and superhuman figure, is accompanied by his angels, all of whom are taking part in the fierce combat that is going on. Again in this picture a lovely landscape is seen on the earth, forming a strong contrast in its sweet repose to the war that is taking place in the sky. Il8 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. No. 13. "And I stood on the sand of the sea, and I saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy .... and all the world wondered after the beast. And they worshipped the dragon, which gave power unto the beast, and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast ? who is able to make war with him ? " (Revelation xiii.) A dragon of similar form to the one in " The Woman clothed with the Sun " receives the worship of the world. Two groups of men of various conditions, foremost amongst whom we again recognise an emperor and empress, prostrate themselves before him, whilst he stretches his long necks above their heads in secure satisfaction, for " his deadly wound was healed." To the left is seen the beast with the ram's horns, in form like a lion, at either side of which fire descends from heaven like thick rain. Above, on the throne, in the clear space of heaven we see the form of Him who is "like unto the Son of Man," having the sharp sickle in His hand, "for the harvest of the earth is ripe." The angel, indeed, of the harvest is already descending "to gather the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great wine-press of the wrath of God." The fourteenth cut personifies " Babylon the great, the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth " (Revelation xvii.). The woman arrayed in purple and scarlet, " having a golden cup in her hand, full of abominations," sits on the back of the seven-headed dragon, holding out her golden cup, and " drunken with the blood of the saints." She is elaborately dressed in the German costume of the fifteenth century, only exaggerated in its ornamentation. Weeds spring up in the path before her, and she leaves fire behind her. The dragon is of the usual form, but somehow his seven heads are too grotesque to be terrible. There is not, I think, the same amount of force in the conception of this design as in most of the other cuts. The Babylonish woman does not strike one as being sufficiently powerful or beautiful to compel the homage of those who are worshipping her. These stand to the left, a careless group ; only one amongst them, a monk, seems aware of the coming destruction. He folds his hands in prayer, whilst the utmost horror and fright are depicted on his countenance, as if he had already caught sight of the angel above, who even then is uttering " mightily, with a strong THE ARCHANGEL MICHAELS COMBAT WITH THE DRAGON. THE APOCALYPSE. 119 voice," the dread sentence, " Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen." Through a break in the clouds to the left side of the cut we see a vast host of heavenly riders who seem to be descending to the earth ; and to the right, on the shore of the sea, the city of Babylon is already in flames. The last illustration of the series represents "The Binding of Satan for a Thousand Years." " And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent which is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years." This cut also seems to me weaker in its conception than the earlier ones of the series. Satan is a poor, snivelling dragon, with a face not unlike that of an Isle of Skye terrier. He is not nearly great and strong enough to realize the Christian personification of the principle of evil, but would suit better for the devil of the old Scandinavian mythology outwitted by the powers of Good. The key of the bottomless pit that the angel holds in his hand is of enormous size, with a bunch of little keys (perhaps of the separate cells in hell) tied through the handle. A beautiful city in the background repre sents the Heavenly Jerusalem, " whose light is the glory of God ; " and in the foreground, on a hill above the Angel and the Dragon, we again have the Seer of all these visions accompanied by one of the elders, who declares to him their signification. St. John is always represented by Diirer as a powerful young or middle-aged man, and never as the aged Prophet of Patmos. The vignette on the title-page of the Apocalypse, which is reckoned as the sixteenth cut, and which Diirer added after the second edition of the work, has no reference to the mysteries recorded in it. It represents a vision of the Virgin, in a glory, with the Child in her arms, appearing to St. John as he is writing his Book of Revelation. He sits on the earth with his symbol, the eagle, by his side, and the book in which he is recording the mysteries that have been revealed to him, on his knees. Suddenly he beholds the glorious vision, and, arrested in his work, looks up to the Virgin as if for inspiration. The first two editions of the Apocalypse, the one with German text — " Die Heimlich Offenbarung Johanis," — and the other ,20 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. with Latin— " APOCALIPSIS CU FIGURIS "— were printed at Nurnberg, in the year 1498, by Albrecht Diirer himself, as is stated on the back of the last cut but one.1 In 15 1 1 Diirer put forth a third edition of this work, adding to it, as I have already mentioned, the vignette cut on the title-page. At the end of the text in this edition there is a caution addressed to the plagiarist, informing him that the Emperor forbade any one to copy the cuts or to sell spurious impressions of them within the limits of the Empire, under pain of confiscation of goods and further punishment. This caution was decidedly necessary, for already, in 1502, Hieronymus Greff, a painter of Frankfort, had published a pirated edition of the Apocalypse, and more were likely to follow, for this first great work in wood-engraving of Diirer's seems to have met with a very favourable reception from the German public. The second of Durer's great series of wood-engravings has for its subject "The Life of the Virgin." It consists of twenty, large cuts, one of which forms the vignette on the title-page, and represents the Virgin sitting on the crescent moon, suckling the child, with a halo of glory around her and a crown of stars above her head, — one of the most pleasing of the many similar representations that Diirer has given us of this subject. Above this cut is the title of the work : — " Epitome in v>\nm parthenices Mari___ historiam ab Al berto DURERO NORICO PER FIGURAS DIGESTAM CUM VERSIBUS ANNEXIS CHELIDONH." The first edition was published at Nurnberg in 151 1, and was accompanied by the explanatory Latin verses of Chelidonius, Bene dictine monk of Nurnberg. The editions without text are the later ones. The " Life of the Virgin " is of a totally different character to the Apocalypse. There is nothing mystic or awful here. Everything awakens the tenderest emotions of the heart, instead of feelings of 1 " Ein ende hat das Buch der heimlichen offenbarung Sant iohasen des zwelff- boten und evangelisten. Gedrucht zu Nurnberg durch Albrecht Durer maler nach Christi geburt M.CCCC. und darnach im XCVUI. Jar." Here ends the secret revela tion of St. John of the twelve apostles and evangelists. Printed at Nurnberg by Albrecht Diirer, painter, in the year 1498.) THE LIFE OF THE VIRGIN. 121 awe and wonder. The Mother of Christ is portrayed in her earthly condition, surrounded by the ordinary scenes of domestic life, but yet is she blessed among women in that the Lord hath regarded the lowliness of His handmaiden. In spite of the entire realism of many of these cuts, a soft halo of holiness, if I may so describe it, overspreads the whole, and turns the common incidents and cares of her virgin and maternal life into significant indications of her lofty destiny : thus, even in the most prosaic scene of all — the birth of the Virgin — where Anna lies in bed, receiving caudle and some other refreshment from her nurses, and where a number of German gossips of the fifteenth century are seen regaling themselves with cans of beer, as they superintend the washing of the new-born child, a grand angel, swinging incense from a censer, the smoke of which floats over the big old-fashioned German bed, gives a solemn meaning to an otherwise literal representation of a lying-in chamber in a Nurnberg family of some little importance in the sixteenth century. This charming idyllic poem — for such it may be called — of the life of the Virgin commences with the events that occurred, as related by the Apocryphal Gospel, before the birth of the heroine. The first cut represents : 1. The High Priest refusing the Offering of Joachim in THE TEMPLE. — The different expressions of the spectators, who behold Joachim's rejection because he is " childless in Israel," are no doubt faithfully rendered from the human nature that Diirer saw around him in Nurnberg. Pride, suspicion, bigotry, and inward satis faction in the misfortunes of our neighbours are sins common to all times, and were as rife, Diirer perhaps meant to insinuate, amongst German burghers as amongst the Pharisees of the tribe of Judah. 2. The Angel appearing to Joachim in the Wilderness. — The messenger of God reaches to Joachim a parchment containing the heavenly promise that his old age shall be blessed with the birth of a child. Two shepherds and a huntsman look in amazement at the sudden glorious appearance of the angel. Joachim receives the announcement in joyful faith. The landscape is very beautiful, and varied with hill, wood, meadow, water, castle, and town. A leafless tree bough in the foreground of this cut is an admirable specimen of Durer's fine tree drawing. R 122 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. 3. Joachim embraces Anna at the Golden Gate. — Again we have German spectators of the Hebrew event, amongst whom we recognise the usual Diirer types, in particular the fat burgher with the low hat and stolid expression of countenance, who in this instance fails entirely to comprehend the scene before him. The old husband and wife, with their arms thrown round one another in joyful relief and hope, form a very touching incident. 4. The Birth of the Virgin. — The scene in the lying-in chamber already described. It is most curious to notice how accurately and minutely every little detail of the furniture and accessories of the apart ment has been studied by Diirer. This cut gives one an admirable notion of German manners and customs on such occasions in the sixteenth century. 5. The Presentation of the Young Virgin in the Temple. — The young girl with long hair floating behind her runs up the steps of the Temple before her parents, in her eagerness to be admitted to the service of God. The High Priest with three elders stand at the top of the steps to receive her. Joachim and Anna follow with their offerings, which will not now be refused. 6. The Betrothal of the Virgin. — This is the best known cut of the series, on account of the numerous copies and reproductions of it that exist in various forms. The High Priest stands in the middle, and Mary to the right and Joseph to the left solemnly take hands before him. Behind the aged and sorrow-stricken High Priest, a man with a thick curly beard reads out of a book, apparently acting as clerk ; his prosaic, Sancho Panza-like expression of countenance forming a strong contrast to the dignified bearing of the principal figures. The Virgin looks sad and wan. She is dressed as a Niirnberg bride of the fifteenth century, and one of her attendants, or bridesmaids, wears the hideous stiff linen head-dress common at that period. Joseph is repre sented, as is usual in art, as an old man of mild and amiable, but somewhat weak expression of countenance. The ark of the covenant is seen in the background. Durer's monogram lies conspicuously in front, before the feet of the High Priest. 7. The Annunciation.— The Virgin sits under a canopy before a reading-desk. She bends with slightly crossed arms and bowed head before the Annunciate Angel, a powerful form, who appears to have entered at the door of the apartment— which is partly hall and partly the adoration of the kings. THE LIFE OF THE VIRGIN. ,23 bedchamber — and not to have come down direct from the skies. A strange element in such a subject is the introduction of the Devil, who in the form of a hog contemplates from the outside the scene that is going on within the Virgin's apartment. 8. The Visitation. — The greeting of the two women takes place outside the door of Elizabeth's house, with a charming landscape as a background. The little half-shorn poodle dog that Diirer has intro duced so frequently into his pictures that it is usually known as "the Diirer dog," is seen in the foreground. Zacharias stands humbly with his hat in his hand within the portal of his dwelling, knowing perhaps that the honour of the visit is not intended for him. 9. The Nativity. — Dr. von Eye considers that Diirer was tram melled in this and several other cuts of this series by the traditional and conventional mode of representing such subjects, which did not allow free play to his original genius. Be this as it may, the design of this cut does not materially differ from the usual treatment of the earlier German and Flemish masters. The new-born Child lies in the manger, beneath the imperfect shelter of some old stable buildings, which must be half ruinous, for the star of Bethlehem is visible through a hole in the straw roof just above where the Child is lying, adored by His mother, and surrounded by a number of little child-angels. A choir of child-angels also sing the birth-song of the Saviour in the air above. 10. The Adoration of the Kings (see illustration). — This subject is likewise treated in the traditional manner, but it is one of the best examples of this mode of treatment. The Virgin sits on some dilapidated stonework in a ruined building that seems once to have formed a part of some mediaeval castle, for stone arches and a tower of considerable strength are seen above. She holds the Child on her lap, who stretches forth His little arms towards the grey old king, who kneels in solemn adoration before the God-child, but does not, as in another adoration by Diirer bearing date 15 11 (Heller, 1 103), offer any earthly treasures for His acceptance. The younger king with his gift in his hand, and the Moor, who in this instance is of a white complexion, although he has woolly hair, stand behind the principal king. A man in chain armour and several others be longing to the retinue of the kings are visible in the background. Joseph stands behind the Virgin, holding a large ball (?) in his hand, perhaps the gift of the elder king, who may have wisely presented it R 2 124 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. to the earthly father rather than to the heavenly Child. One of the oxen, whose face peers out from beneath an old shed, rubs his head lovingly against the old man, and his solemn eyes look as if he had caught some glimmering of the divine mystery that was being enacted before him. Three boy-angels above complete the effect of this cut. n. The Circumcision of Christ— Several other children besides the infant Saviour are brought to receive the distinctive Jewish sign, but the only mother who shows any feeling on the occasion is the Virgin. The circumcision of Christ is sometimes reckoned in art as one of the " sorrows of Mary," her life being often represented by the early religious painters in a series of seven joys and seven sorrows. 12. The Presentation in the Temple.— The aged Simeon, whose face is nearly hidden by a large cap, holds the Infant in his arms, bending the while over a square altar covered with a white cloth ; Mary kneels at the other side of the altar, and makes her offering of doves contained in a sort of wicker cage. The prophetess Anna presses forward with outstretched arms, and a number of spectators, principally women, in the dress of Durer's time, fills up the background. Immediately in the foreground of this cut there is a figure of a monk, whose face is hidden from us, but whose right arm is thrown round one of the pillars of the Temple, as if to support the building that was so soon to be overthrown. Could Durer have 'meant this as any allusion to the overthrow of the Church of Rome ? We see that the monk's arm would be wholly insufficient to save the pillar from falling, should it once begin to totter.1 13. The Flight into Egypt— The way lies through a shady forest of tropical trees, and Joseph leads the ass on which mother and Child are seated across a little arched bridge. Mary has a large sun-hat thrown off her head in the pleasant shade, and hanging at her back. The composition is not unlike Martin Schongauer, only the trees do not, as in his engraving, bow down to give the holy ones fruit. 14. The Holy Family in Egypt. —This is one of the most charming designs of the whole scries, and in execution also it ranks amongst the most perfect. Its delicate finish is indeed almost unrivalled in the history of wood-engraving. 1 Two studies for this cut are amongst the drawings in the British Museum One of them is most carefully finished, and the Virgin's face in the softly-colourcd drawin.- is more tender and beautiful than in the woodcut. " CHRIST TAKING LEAVE OF HIS MOTHER. THE LIFE OF THE VIRGIN. 125 Joseph has here resumed his business as a carpenter, and with an adze in his hand is occupied in hollowing out a trough or a manger. In order better to enjoy the warm summer's day, he has made the open air his workshop, and labours in the free space before his dwelling — a quaint mediaeval building of wood and stone, such as could scarcely be found in the neighbourhood of the Pyramids, but of which Diirer had plenty of examples nearer home. The Virgin Mary sits near to Joseph, spinning, and rocking meanwhile the cradle of her Child, who lies peacefully asleep in it, watched by two grand angels, one of whom carries a pot of flowers. St. Elizabeth and the young St. John the Baptist are also present. Nothing can exceed the domestic happiness and peace of the whole scene. The castle-crowned hill behind the stone archway leading into the fruitful garden, and the tumble-down dwelling that has apparently been built up amongst the ruins of some grand old Norman building, all add to the home-spell that is cast over us in contemplating this picture of holy labour. Nor is this disturbed by the introduction of the fantastic element, which breaks forth in the shape of a number of funny little boy-angels who are engaged in picking up and playing with the chips that fall from the carpenter's work. One of these little angels carries the toy known as a " windmill," and runs along with it, dragging by the hand one of his winged playmates. God the Father, a half figure in the clouds, with the dove of the Spirit beneath Him, does not, strange to say, seem out of harmony with the earthly scene.1 15. Christ found by His Parents disputing with the Doctors in the Temple.— The young Jesus sits on a raised seat before a reading-desk, and appears to be delivering a sermon rather than asking and answering questions. The doctors of the Church sit 1 A writer in the "Kunstblatt," 1852, was the first to point out an interesting circumstance regarding a wooden post or pillar of peculiar construction that Diirer has drawn in this cut, as supporting a kind of balcony or overhanging chamber in Joseph's dwelling. The very same construction is to be seen at the present day in the hall of the Durer house in Nurnberg, and it is therefore most probable, indeed almost certain, that he drew this pillar from one of those in his own hall. It is split at the top with a wedge of wood inserted on which the beam it supports rests. The wedge therefore would only be driven farther in if the beam should give way. It has always hitherto been supposed that these rudely contrived pillars in the low Diirer hall were of much later date than his habitation of the house, but this little observation tends to prove that the house has not been so entirely altered since his time as has been supposed. ! 2 6 LIFE OF ALBRECHT D URER. below Him, with different expressions of feeling visible on their coun tenances. This mode of treating the subject is common with the early religious painters, who seem to have had some reverential dislike to representing Christ mixing with the rest of the people in the Temple, as He is represented in the biblical narrative. 16. Christ taking leave of His Mother before His Suffer ings. — Many anxious years have passed over the Virgin's head between the last cut and this. Here she is weighted with years and cares, although, as she divines, her greatest sorrow is yet to come. The faithful Joseph is no longer near to support her, but, as she sinks to the earth in her agony of spirit at the trial before her, she is upheld by a stout female with a big turban on her head of very unsympathetic aspect. Another woman stands by, who seems a little more affected by the scene she is witnessing. Christ, a grave figure in flowing garments, stands before His mother, holding up His hand with two fingers extended, as if He were teaching her the nature of His sufferings. The scene is in the open air before the door of Mary's abode. A grand walled town and fortress on a hill immediately above the principal figures is surmised by Von Eye to bear allusion to the heavenly Jerusalem, but Diirer so often introduces such buildings into his pictures that it seems to me unlikely that he intended any mystic meaning by their representation here. 17. The Death of the Virgin.— This had been a favourite subject of religious art from an early period, and Diirer has not materially departed from the traditional treatment of it, yet he has infused such a portion of his own original genius into the scene he portrays, that we at once recognise it as the work of his mind and hand. Kugler places the Death of the Virgin " very high amongst the works of Diirer," and praises its " perfect composition, fine forms, and deep feeling." It has been frequently copied in colours by his followers, and in many galleries pictures of this kind bear his name. The Virgin lies on the usual state bed with a canopy over the top. The curtains are drawn back to admit the view of the Apostles, all of whom are assembled around her in her last moments. St. John places the lighted wax taper in her hand, Peter sprinkles the bed with holy water, a third disciple scatters incense, and a fourth holds the cross erect before her eyes ; the remainder of the twelve are sunk in prayer. 18. The Ascension of the Virgin. — No longer old and sor- THE DEAIH OK THE VIRGIN. THE GREAT PASSION. 127 rowful, and bowed with the pains of an earthly existence, the Virgin ascends, as the ever young and beautiful Queen of Heaven, the object of the Church's adoration and love, towards her heavenly abode, where God the Father and God the Son, whom she has borne as an Infant at her breast, are waiting to receive her and set the eternal crown of glory on her head. Below on earth is the open grave that could not retain its inmate, and around it stand the Apostles, their grief turned into wondering joy at the glorious sight they behold. 19. The Virgin and Child adored by Saints and Angels. — The glorified mother with the Child on her lap, the emblem of all that is purest in womanhood and the symbol that the Christian Church in all ages has received as expressing God's love to men, are worshipped by the saints and martyrs of the earth and by the angels who dwell above. Nearest to the Virgin kneels St. Catharine, behind St. Catharine stands St. Paul, and farther back St. Anthony and St. John the Baptist. St. Joseph even (who is not always admitted by art into the company of the saints) stands humbly in the background, with his cap in his hand, apparently doubtful whether he ought to be there at all. It is difficult to determine in what locality this scene is supposed to take place, whether in heaven or on the earth. The dwelling in which the Virgin is seated is correctly described by Von Eye as " a mixture of antique temple and a burgher's ordinary dwelling-room." If such were Durer's notion of the mansions in the Father's house, it is certainly a strange one. This is the last cut of the series, the vignette on the title-page, already mentioned, forming the twentieth illustration. To the same year as the Life of the Virgin (1511) belong the twelve folio cuts known as the Great Passion, and the series of thirty-seven smaller ones, distinguished by some writers as " The Fall of Man and his Redemption through Christ," but which Diirer himself always called the " Little Passion " (Die kleine Passion), in contradistinction to the large cuts of the Great Passion. The cuts of the Great Passion are very unequal, both in their design and in their execution, a circumstance that has led some critics to suppose that they were not all Durer's creations, but that some amongst them were the work of inferior artists. Vasari, indeed, affirms that only four, namely, " The Last Supper," " The Saviour in the Garden," " The Descent into Hell," and " The Resurrection," were really conceived and I28 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. executed by Durer, and that the eight others are simple forgeries (for they are all signed with his monogram), but this does not seem very probable, and the difference in their execution, if not in their design, is very easily accounted for if we suppose that they were engraved by different Formschneider, which it appears nearly certain was the case. The first edition of the " Great Passion " is entitled : — Passio Domini nostri Jesu exhieronymo Paduano, Do- minico Manico. Sedulio et Baptista Mantuano, per fratem Chelidonium collecta, cum figuris Alberti Dureri Norici Pictoris. — Under this title comes the grand figure of the suffering Christ, which serves as vignette to the title-page, and which comprises in itself the whole solemn tragedy that the rest of the cuts set forth. Nothing can exceed the touching grief of that human-divine face, in which infinite love is intermingled with finite sorrow. This and the similar woodcut on the title-page of the " Little Passion " are two of the most pathetic designs that Durer ever conceived of the suffering Redeemer, a subject that he often treated. In the vignette to the " Little Passion " Christ sits naked and alone upon a square block of stone, His thorn-crowned head resting on His hand, and His elbow supported on His knees. He is lost in thought — thought the most profound, the most bitter. It is the hour when His humanity lies heaviest upon Him, the hour when He has drained the cup of bitter ness to the uttermost, for " the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all," and the burden is almost too much for the man, although the God knows that " He shall see of the travail of His soul and be satisfied." The Christ of the " Great Passion " expresses a somewhat different idea to this, or perhaps only another moment in the same life. Christ still sits on a large square block of stone, but He is no longer alone ; one of His tormentors kneels in front of Him, and jeers at Him with bitter mockery, holding up a thick reed as a mock sceptre before His eyes. The scourge, one of the instruments of His passion, lies at His side, and His hands are clenched in agony. He is indeed " despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief," yet the grief here is not of the same dark, oppressive nature as that which overwhelms Him in the " Little Passion." He has passed through the hour of agonizing temptation, and now " as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so He openeth not His mouth."1 But yes, He opens it once, 1 See tail-piece, page 145. THE GREAT PASSION. 129 and prays, even at the moment that Diirer has chosen for representa tion, the noblest prayer ever uttered by man, — " Father, forgive them ; for they know not what they do." It is evident that Diirer has not meant in these cuts to represent Christ merely in His historical character, for in each of them the feet and hands are already pierced with the nails of the cross, a mark of suffering that would not have been historically true until after the crucifixion ; but he sets forth on the title-page of his works the Man Christ Jesus as He reveals Himself to the eyes of the Christian world, the loving and sorrowing One, the type of our humanity made perfect through suffering, and free to do God's will. The first historical cut of the series of the " Great Passion " has for its subject the "Last Supper," and is dated 1510. Christ sits at table in a low-arched room resembling a refectory in some convent. The beloved disciple St. John leans from his seat right across the knees of our Lord, so that his head comes directly in the centre of the picture, resting on the breast of the Saviour, who enfolds him with one arm, and raises the other with the palm of the hand turned outwards, declaring, " One of you shall betray me." The rest of the disciples crowd round the table on which stand the remains of their meal, in the shape, apparently, of the skeleton of some large bird, although it may be presumed that Durer intended to represent the Passover lamb. Judas sits in front on a three-legged stool, with his back to the spectator, but with his face turned round, away from Him he is about to betray. Another disciple to the left is pouring out wine from a flagon. The date is placed on the centre support of the table, and Durer's mono gram on the ground in front of it. The elaborate and difficult execution of this cut has caused some critics to class it amongst Durer's finest works, but in conception and composition it does not seem to me to be quite worthy of the artist's great powers ; at all events, when we compare it with the many noble conceptions of this subject by the great Italian artists, it fails to satisfy our hearts, for we miss the holy atmosphere that Leonardo and Raphael have breathed into their representations of the solemn event. With regard to the mechanical execution Jackson says : " Cross- hatching is freely introduced, though without contributing much to the improvement of the engraving ; and the same effect in the wall to the right, in the groins of the roof, and in the floor under the tabic, might S , 30 LIFE OF ALB RE CHT D URER. be produced by much simpler means. No artist, I am persuaded, would introduce such work in a design if he had to engrave it himself." The second cut represents CHRIST ON THE MOUNT OF OLIVES, with His disciples sleeping in the foreground. Here again the conception does not seem to me to be equal to the subject, or the powers of the man who conceived the Christ of the title-page. Christ betrayed forms the subject of the third cut. This is a rich and powerful composition of many figures. Christ scourged (No. 4) is slight in execution and exaggerated in its horror. It was the mistake of most of the early German masters, and one from which Diirer himself was not entirely free, to give a perfectly fiendish ugliness to their representations of evil men. The executioners and Roman soldiers in this series, as well as in that of the " Little Passion," are generally hideous, raging monsters, who seem to have lost all traces of human pity. Christ mocked (No. 5). — This also is one of the less important compositions of the series, one of those that have been supposed not to be by Diirer, and indeed the engraving that is usually met with is not by him, but is an etched copy in which the original date 1592 and the monogram of the engraver have been erased, and the date 15 12 and Diirer's monogram inserted.1 Christ bearing the Cross (No. 6) is one of the most celebrated compositions of the series, celebrated by some critics, I think, chiefly because Raphael deigned to adopt its composition in his world-famed picture " Lo Spasimo di Sicilia." Durer's conception of this subject is undoubtedly very powerful. The grand and majestic Christ, the centre figure of the woodcut, sinks down on His thorny path to Calvary, beneath the burden of the heavy cross He is carrying on His shoulders ; a soldier in a fantastic mediaeval dress tries to drag Him up by a thick rope that is fastened round His waist, but the divine sufferer, crushed beneath the weight, not of the cross, but of the sins of the world, cannot be moved; He rests one hand on a stone that lies beside Him, and remains in an attitude of dignified resignation and sorrowful composure. St. Veronica kneels at His side with the handkerchief outspread to receive the imprint of His features, and Simon the Cyrenian takes hold of the cross as if to lift some of its weight off Christ. The press of people follows behind, and in the moving train we recognise the Virgin 1 Sec I Idler, No. 1 126, p. 544. THE GREAT PASSION. J3i and the disciple St. John. Two important personages on horseback with turbans on their heads make part of the procession; one of them, a well-known Diirer type, is present again in the next cut, "The Crucifixion." CHRIST CRUCIFIED (No. 7). — The figure of Christ on the rough- hewn cross occupies the centre of the picture. Three angels of sorrow ful countenance catch the blood that flows from His wounds ; the Virgin in the foreground sinks to the earth fainting, and is supported by St. John and one of the other Marys. A landscape of town, river, bridge, and tree-covered hill, forms the background. A skull and bones lie on the ground in front of the cross. S 2 I38 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. Christ's Descent into Hell and Release of the Ancestors (No. 8 ; see illustration).— In this cut the originality of Durer's genius again bursts forth in all its strength. There was no traditional mode of representation of this strange subject, and therefore his weird fancy rioted in its composition untrammelled by any previous form of orthodox treatment. Hell is represented here, not as usual as the fiery mouth of a dragon, but as a ruined underground mansion, out of the dark vaults of which Christ, holding the banner of victory in one hand, is helping, or rather dragging, up the souls of the ancestors. Adam and Eve have been already liberated, and Adam, a powerful old man, stands behind Christ holding an apple in one hand, the symbol of his fall, and the cross in the other, the emblem of his redemption. Eve stands with her back turned to the spectator. A hideous demon of animal form — somewhat similar to the one that follows the knight in the plate of " The Knight Death and the Devil " — leans out of a sort of window above the arched entrance to hell, and aims a blow at the Saviour with a short broken lance ; other fearful forms lurk behind, and above, a dreadful bat-like shape with ram's horns and scaly tail sounds on a horn a note of alarm at the invasion of his territory by the powers of light ; for all these creatures are the children of darkness, and the glorious beams of light that radiate from Christ's head are a terror and an offence to them. Durer's monogram is seen on the side of a stone in front of the entrance to the vault, and the date 1510 on a projecting bracket above the arch. For originality of conception, for excellence of execution, and for effective combination of light and shade, this is certainly one of the finest of Durer's woodcuts. The Body of Christ mourned over by the Virgin and the Holy Women (No. 9). — Kugler says of this composition that it may " unhesitatingly be placed by the side of the most profound works of the great Italian masters." Its simple and yet grand design and its deep pathos are indeed worthy of the highest admiration. Unfortu nately it is badly engraved. Christ laid in the Grave (No. 10). — This cut also is badly executed, and it is always difficult to consider the merit of a design apart from the manner in which it is worked out ; it does not, however, seem to me to show Diirer's usual excellence either in conception or composition. THE DESCENT INTO HELL. THE LITTLE PASSION. 133 The Resurrection (No. 11).— In this last scene in the earthly history of our Lord, Durer's powers as an artist are fully put forth. The living Christ, whom the bands of death cannot hold, rises above the tomb in which He has been laid, and heaven opens to receive His glorified form. The weary soldiers, true German Landsknechte, sleep round the grave, but above hosts of angels in the clouds rejoice in the victory over sin and death. The monk Chelidonius, who was a friend of Durer's, and who supplied the verses for the " Life of the Virgin," likewise wrote the Latin text of both Passions. Bartsch is of opinion that the earliest impressions of these cuts are those that have no text on the back of them ; but Heller, and most of the later critics, hold that in this and in all other instances the first impressions are those with letter-press, and that it is the later ones that are without, and support this view by very conclusive reasoning. The " Great Passion " in its original book-form is now of great rarity, the leaves having been usually separated and kept in portfolios by their earlier possessors. The idea that the first impressions were without text at the back has given rise to printsellers passing off late and bad cuts as the earliest impressions, simply from their being without letterpress. The LITTLE PASSION is perhaps the best known of all Durer's wood- engravings. It begins with Adam and Eve in Paradise, and ends with the Last Judgment, thus embracing, in one grand epic poem, the whole history of man's fall and final redemption through the sufferings of Christ. Space will not permit me to do more than point out a few of the most beautiful compositions of this series, which, as before stated, consists of thirty-seven quarto cuts. ADAM AND Eve IN PARADISE (No. 1) is different in its arrange ment to the celebrated engraving of the same subject, for here Adam and Eve both stand together at one side of the tree. The serpent's head is adorned with peacock's feathers, in allusion, perhaps, to the female vanity which prompted the acceptance of the fatal gift ; its body is twined in a double coil round the tree, but it has not a female face, as was common in representations of the Fall. A con tented hog grunts significantly at the foot of the tree of knowledge. He never sought to climb and taste of the dangerous fruit ! To man only is given that uneasy prerogative, the yearning desire to know. I34 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. The angel in THE EXPULSION (No. 2) is grand and powerful, but Adam and Eve are undignified in their retreat before his uplifted sword ; they have literally to be pushed out of Paradise. Durer's nude forms have certainly very little either of majesty or grace.1 Christ driving the Money Changers out of the Temple (No. 6).— Christ, a majestic figure, in full light in the centre of the cut, is armed with a thick lash of rope, with which He clears the Temple from its desecrators. A money-changer lies prostrate before Him, with his table overthrown and his money spilt on the ground. This cut is very effective in its light and shade, and a large amount of cross-hatching occurs in it. The Last Supper (No. 7) is somewhat similar in composition to that of the " Great Passion." The divine, calm grief on the Saviour's countenance is well expressed. The Prayer on the Mount of Olives (No. 9). — Peter's face here is very fine. He has fallen asleep through sorrow as much as through weariness. Christ before Annas (No. ii), and Christ mocked (No. 13), have both the painful exaggeration common in early German art. Christ before Herod (No. 15), and Christ scourged (No. 16), are weak in effect, the figure of Christ expressing meekness, but failing in grandeur. Christ bearing the Cross is similar in its composition, but not so noble in its conception as the same subject in the " Great Passion." A monster in human form goads on the fallen Christ here with a thick stick. The Crucifixion. — This is much simpler in composition, but altogether produces a more powerful effect than the crucifixion of the " Great Passion." The darkness of the night heightens the solemnity of the awful scene. Everything around is calm and at rest. No weeping angels fly about the cross ; neither sun nor moon is to be seen, only the black-lined sky above, throwing out into full relief the figure on the cross. Even the women arc still and composed in their sorrow. Mary Magdalene, it is true, cannot refrain from kissing once more the feet of Him who loved her, but the rest stand by with restrained emotion. St. John only of the group round the cross testifies his grief in any violent manner ; he throws up his arms as if in the agony of despair. But 1 The early impressions of this subject may be known by the back of Eve being slightly shaded. This shading was taken out— a great improvement — in the later ones. DRIVING OUT THE MONEY-CHANGERS. THE LITTLE PASSION. 135 above him, above the quiet women, and above the Roman guard, stands forth the everlasting image of the crucified Christ, the crown of thorns on His head, and the blood shed for mankind flowing from His wounded side. In its quiet yet profound feeling this small woodcut of the " Little Passion" seems to me more touching than any of Durer's greater " Crucifixions." Christ taken down from the Cross, The Entombment, The Resurrection, Christ appearing to Mary Magdalene as the Gardener, and The Supper at Emmaus, are all simple and noble compositions, in which the figure of Christ has great beauty and holiness. In the " Supper at Emmaus " especially, the distinction between the risen Lord and His disciples would be fully apparent without the glory of light that breaks forth behind the divine head. The Last Judgment, the last cut of the series, is conceived much in the same spirit as some of the illustrations to the Apocalypse, and resembles in some degree the archaic productions of early art. Christ, as Judge of the earth, sits throned in the clouds with His feet on the earth-ball. A sword on the right and a flowering lily on the left have proceeded from His mouth. The Virgin and St. John the Baptist, figures of the same size as the Christ, kneel in worship before Him. Below on the earth, at the left hand of Christ, there is the usual mouth of hell in the shape of the open jaws of a dragon, into which the wicked are being driven by demons, whilst the redeemed spirits on the right hand, a much smaller company than the damned, are conducted by angels to heaven. Two angels to the right and left of the Judge blow the trumps of doom. It seems a pity that this traditional mode of expression, of which we have so many examples, should have been adopted by Diirer, and that he did not rather view the subject in the powerful light of his own original genius. A truly Diiresque conception of the " Last Judgment " would be very grand ; but this small woodcut of the " Little Passion " is, with the exception of a slight drawing mentioned by Heller, so far as I know, the only genuine example that we have of his treatment of this subject.1 1 " Le Jugement Universel" described by Bartsch, No. 124, is of very doubtful authenticity. There is a rough and half-obliterated drawing for this subject in the British Museum. I36 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. The "Little Passion" has appeared in several different editions. The two first were published in the same year (1511) in NUrnberg, the first with the title, " Figvr^: Passionis Domini Nostri Jesv Christi," in moveable type above the vignette of the sitting Christ, and ending simply with the words, "Finit impressum, Noribergae 1511," so that, strange to say, the name of the artist does not appear either at the beginning or end of the book. The second edition may be known from the first by the title being arranged as follows : — " IJassio € Ijristt nh Qlhtxta Jvmr $umntegwsi 4ff.gi1.fs. tit frarij gtneris mmiiviinia Jtalris ;$mbi.ii CJKli&mrij Ulusojrljili." Under the woodcut there are these Latin verses : — " O mihi tantorum iusto mihi causa dolorimt O crucis O mortis causa entente mihi O homo sat fuerit, tibi me semel ista tulisse O cessa culpis me cruciare nonis." and under these — " Cum privilegio." Besides these two editions published by Diirer in Nurnberg, at least two others have appeared since his death. In 161 2 the original blocks must by some means or other have travelled to Italy, for in that year an edition was put forth in Venice by a certain Daniel Bussuccio, with Italian verses instead of the Latin ones of Chelidonius. This edition is without the vignette of the sitting Christ on the title-page ; in its place there is a portrait of Diirer. From Venice they appear to have been taken to Naples,1 where they were purchased in the last century by a gentleman, whose son afterwards sold them to the then keeper of the prints in our British Museum ; so that at last, after many vicissitudes, they have finally found a safe resting-place in their old age in the print-room of the Museum, with so many other interesting memorials of Diirer. They have not, however, been suffered to lie there idle ; for although worn out and worm-eaten, Durer's original designs still have 1 Ottley, " Hist, of Engraving," vol. ii. THE LAST SUPPER. SINGLE WOODCUTS.— THE TRINITY. 137 interest to all lovers of his art : and many students, especially English students of Durer's works, who are unable to indulge in the luxury of early impressions, have no doubt felt grateful to Mr. Cole for publishing in 1844 a fourth edition of these renowned cuts in the shape of a small and inexpensive volume, with descriptive letterpress from our English Bible in place of the verses of Chelidonius. With regard to the engraving of these blocks, Mr. Cole tells us that Mr. John Thomson, " by universal concurrence the most skilful engraver which the art has yet witnessed, and therefore the best authority on all its technicalities, has examined the blocks, especially with reference to this question, and he has pointed out those varieties of mechanical execution as apparent as the varieties of different handwritings, which conclusively prove the fact contended for" — namely, that although Diirer designed and drew his designs on the wood of these blocks, he did not cut them himself. Such technical authority is of course very valuable ; and when we consider also the numerous other important wood -engravings, besides the series of the Life of the Virgin, and the Great and Little Passion, that Diirer put forth in the same year, it becomes a matter of physical impossibility that he should have executed the mechanical part of all of them himself. Certainly we find that this year 1511, so richly productive in woodcuts, is comparatively barren in copper-plates, a " Crucifixion " and " The Virgin with the Pear" being the only two that I can find that are thus dated. But one of his greatest paintings, " The Adoration of the Trinity," belongs to this period, and this alone would have been sufficient work for most minds and hands. Amongst the most remarkable single subjects that Diirer executed in wood-engraving may be mentioned THE TRINITY (Heller, 1646), dated 15 11. God the Father, with the papal crown on His head, bears up into heaven the dead body of His Son. The dove of the Spirit hovers above, and angels bearing the instruments of the Passion fly around.1 This grand engraving is reckoned one of the most perfect works that the art of wood-engraving ever produced. The amount of cross-hatching in it is something wonderful ; even in copper-plate engraving such work would be considered very fine, and when we consider the infinitely greater labour that is required to execute the 1 Although both belong to the same year the woodcut differs considerably in design from the painting of the same subject. T ,38 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. fine cross lines in wood, in which every little white interstice has to be carefully and separately picked out, the patient labour represented by a cut such as this is truly enormous. One wonders how the lives of those old Formschneider were ever long enough to execute such designs. There are several copies of this cut, but none at all equal to the original. St. Christopher, 1511 (Heller, 1818). — This is my favourite of all Durer's conceptions of the Christ-bearing saint. There is some thing very tender and touching in the face of the great strong man who wades up to the shore, bearing on his broad shoulders the little Child, who is the monarch under whose banner the loving giant will henceforward fight. The long pole that St. Christopher uses in crossing the river significantly breaks into a sort of rough cross at the top. St. Christopher, 1525 (Heller, 1827). — The Saint here does not satisfy my ideal of St. Christopher so thoroughly as in the last-named cut. The Child holds the earth-ball in his left hand, so that St. Christopher might likewise stand for a Christian Atlas bearing the weight of the whole earth on his shoulders. The Mass of St. Gregory, 15 ii (Heller, 1833). — A very ex traordinary conception of the vision of the crucified Saviour that appeared to St. Gregory as he was celebrating High Mass. It must be seen to be understood. The composition is powerful and the execution very fine. St. Jerome in his Chamber, 1511 (Heller, 1840).— This is different in composition from the celebrated plate of the same subject, but scarcely less beautiful. St. Jerome, in the dress of a cardinal, sits at his desk writing in a book that lies open upon it. The crucifix stands before him, and the lion, his accustomed companion and emblem, lies at his feet. An hour-glass with the zodiac above it, like that in the plate of " The Knight, Death and the Devil," is fastened to the wall behind, and a large chest, such as was usually used for a seat in Diirer's time, stands immediately in front of the desk of the saint. Two cushions and a book lie upon it, and the date 151 1 is on the side. Death and the Soldier, 15 10 (Heller, 1901).— Death draped in a mantle, and holding the hour-glass in one hand, stands in a churchyard and lays hold of a warrior who does not seem at all terrified by his cold grip. This cut is somewhat rare. The early impressions have a THE BEHEADING OF ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST. SINGLE WOODCUTS. I39 long German poem annexed to them containing a great deal of dilute proverbial philosophy. The first two lines printed above the cut inform us that "Nothing avails from death to escape, Therefore serve God both early and late." " Keyn ding hilfft fur den zeytling todt, Darumb dienent got frrwe und spot." These verses are signed A. D., and they are certainly very much in Durer's moralizing style. St. Francis receiving the Stigmata (Heller, 1829).— A very strange and essentially German and realistic rendering of the mystic subject. St. Francis kneels on the ground in a German landscape, with quaint mediaeval houses behind him. He appears in a state of ecstasy, and in the sky above the figure of Christ on the cross is seen, from which a number of thick lines descend, touching the hands, side, and feet of St. Francis, and impressing on them the stigmata or five wounds of the Redeemer. St. Francis is in the dress of his order, and another Franciscan monk is sitting on the earth a little in front of him, apparently asleep. The Durer tablet hangs on the stem of a tree to the right. The Holy Family with the Guitar, 15 ii (Heller, 1802).— This is one of the most charming of Durer's Holy Families. Its title is de rived from one of the angels who sits on the earth before Mary playing an accompaniment on the guitar to another angel who is singing. The Virgin crowned by two Angels, 1518 (Heller, 181 1). — The composition is rich and full of figures. Little angels and genii play about at the feet of the Virgin, some singing and others offering fruit for her refreshment. The Head of St. John the Baptist delivered to Herodias, 15 1 1 (Heller, i860). — Herodias, a vulgar, full-bosomed German landlady, receives the head of the Baptist from her smiling daughter as she sits at table with Herod. Herod, a solemn and noble-looking man, seems the only one moved by the curly horror that is brought to his banquet. In another cut of this subject the executioner delivers the head to Herodias before the gates of the prison. The decapitated body lies across the block, on which Diirer's mark is engraved. The Adoration of the Kings, 1511 (Heller, 1103). — The new born Child fumbles with his little hand in the casket of treasures that T 2 ,4o LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. the eldest king presents to him, and he looks up in his face with sweet infantile unconsciousness. Some writers have reckoned this cut with the " Life of the Virgin " series ; several old catalogues enumerate twenty- one cuts, but it is clear that as Chelidonius only wrote poems for twenty that was the number published. In the well-known copy of this cut by Marc Antonio the Virgin and Child are greatly idealized, and quite Italian in character. Samson killing the Lion (Heller, 1102).— A very powerful conception of the subject. This cut is well known, for the ori ginal block is still in existence, and has been worked until it is quite worn out. The Rhinoceros, 1515 (Heller, 1904).— This cut is interesting, not only from its fine execution, but from its being a representation of the first rhinoceros brought to Europe in modern history. It was brought from India to the King of Portugal, who sent it as a present to the Pope; but the vessel in which the animal was transmitted was ship wrecked on the coast of Genoa and the poor rhinoceros drowned. According to other accounts the Emperor Maximilian possessed the original of Diirer's portrait, which, however, does not seem to have been taken from life, for zoologists affirm that there are several errors in the drawing of the animal, which Diirer probably would not have made had he seen it.1 The Great Head of Christ, undated (Heller, 1629).— The cut which Heller and Bartsch knew and have described by this title, but which many critics have considered to be of doubtful authenticity, is thought by Von Eye to be only an old copy of Durer's work. An original im pression was formerly in the possession of Baron von Rumohr, and was sold with his collection. Von Eye speaks of it as being of the great est rarity. He never, he says, met with more than one impression of it. The copy only is known to me. It is bold and free in drawing, and 1 The original drawing of this rhinoceros is now in the British Museum. It is executed with extreme care, and is one of the great treasures of the collection. There are several editions of this cut. The first was published by Durer in 1515, with a description of the strange animal. The cut was then put forth without text by his heirs, and after this it was published in the Netherlands with Dutch text. This is the edition most frequently met with. There are besides numerous copies both in wood and copper engraving. Parson translated Duress account of the animal in his " History of the Rhinoceros," and it served for a long time for a represen tative rhinoceros in books of natural history. SAMSON KILLING THE LION. MARC ANTONIO'S COPIES. 141 effective though coarse in its cutting. It has a large monogram on the border of the paper. I think I have now enumerated most of Durer's principal wood- engravings, with the exception of the great works executed by him for the Emperor Maximilian, which I reserve to speak of in another chapter. There are of course a number of other single cuts of great beauty and merit besides those mentioned, but for the description of these I must refer the reader to Heller's most comprehensive second volume,1 which is a marvel in its way for laborious research, and accurate although most prosaic description. I do not, as I have said before, profess to give a catalogue raisonne" of Durer's works, but only seek to point out to the reader a few of the most significant productions of his genius, dwelling especially on those that seem to me to reflect most faithfully the mind of the artist who created them. Many excel lent and celebrated cuts, therefore, I have passed by without notice, because they are remarkable chiefly for their execution and not for the original thought expressed in them, and this it is after all which, however we may admire perfect workmanship, gives the true value to every artist's work. I have hitherto said nothing of the numerous copies that exist of Durer's works, more especially of his wood-engravings, but it is well known that no artist ever suffered more from pirated editions than he did. Even in his lifetime he had, as we have seen, to print a warning to plagiarists at the end of his books, stating that his rights were protected by his patron the Emperor Maximilian, but this availed him very little, for no sooner were his engravings published than a host of fraudulent copyists fell upon them and reproduced them with falsified signatures in every possible form. As early as the year 15 12 we find a decree of the Rath of Nurnberg forbidding a foreigner, who it appears was selling " Kunstbriefe" i.e. woodcuts or engravings, with a false Diirer signature, under the very Rathhaus itself, from doing so any longer under penalty of loss of his stock.2 But by far the most formidable copyist of Durer's engravings was the great Marc Antonio Raimondi, who, as is well known, besides 1 The first volume of this work was never published. It was to have contained the personal history of Albrecht Diirer, and would no doubt have been a most valuable contribution to art-biography, but Heller died before completing it. 2 Baader, " Kunstgeschichte Nurnbergs." I42 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. other copies, reproduced on copper, in the most perfect manner possible, the whole of the series of the " Little Passion " and seventeen of the cuts of the " Life of the Virgin " almost immediately after they were published by Durer. Whether he did this with direct intention to deceive or not it is difficult now to determine. Vasari implies that he did ; and although Vasari's statements require to be received with a large amount of cautious doubt, still, as our present great poet-philosopher remarks, " No man ever told one great truth, that I know, without the help of a good dozen of lies at least, generally unconscious ones : and as, when a child comes in breathless and relates a strange story, you try to conjecture from the very falsities in it what the reality was,— do not conclude that he saw nothing in the sky because he assuredly did not see a flying horse there, as he says,— so through the contradictory ex pression, do you see, men should look painfully for, and trust to arrive eventually at, what you call the true principle at bottom." Vasari is just such a breathless child, with tales of flying horses and other incredible stories, yet it does not do to conclude, as modern critics are too apt to do, that the dear old chronicler saw nothing in the sky, because it has been proved by comparison of dates, and other methods of scientific research, about which he never troubled himself, that he assuredly did not see a flying horse there of the exact shape and colour he describes. Vasari's account of the relations between Diirer and Marc Antonio is undoubtedly wrong in many important particulars ; there are " a good dozen of lies " in it at least. Still we should not overlook the fact that there may be one great truth underlying his statement. His history of the matter is as follows : — " It happened that at this time certain Flemings came to Venice with a great many prints, engraved both in wood and copper by Albert Diirer, which being seen by Marc Antonio in the Piazzi di San Marco he was so much astonished by their style of execution, and the skill displayed by Albert, that he laid out on those prints almost all the money he had brought with him from Bologna, and amongst other things purchased the ' Passion of Jesus Christ,' engraved on thirty- six wooden blocks of a small quarto size, which Albert had recently published Marc Antonio therefore, having considered how much honour as well as advantage might be acquired by one who VASARI'S STATEMENTS. 143 should devote himself to that art in Italy, resolved to attend to it with the greatest diligence, and immediately began to copy those engravings of Albert, studying their mode of hatching, and everything else in the prints he had purchased, which from their novelty as well as beauty were in such repute that every one desired to possess them. Having therefore counterfeited in the copper with bold hatch ings, like those in the wood-prints which Albert had engraved, all this series of thirty-six pieces of the ' Life and Passion of Christ,' and having marked them with the mark which Albert used upon his prints (that is, A. D.), they appeared so similar in their manner, that nobody knowing Marc Antonio had done them, they were believed to be the genuine works of Albert, and as such exposed to sale and purchased ; which circumstance being made known to Albert in Flanders,1 he was so indignant that he left Flanders and came to Venice, where he made his complaints against Marc Antonio to the Government, from which, however, he could obtain no other satisfaction save that Marc Antonio was prohibited from using the name or above-mentioned mark of Albert upon his W9rks in future." Now we know that the greater part of this circumstantial relation is utterly incorrect. In the first place Marc Antonio's copies of the " Little Passion " do not contain Durer's mark, but are signed with the empty tablet by which his own works are generally known. In the second place, it is highly improbable that Diirer ever visited Venice after his residence there in 1506-7 ; and that his visit then could not have been for the purpose Vasari describes, I have already stated, is proved by the fact, that the works Marc Antonio copied were not executed until some years after Durer's return to Nurnberg, namely in 1510—1511. Thirdly, it appears very doubtful whether the Venetian Government would have been able, even had it desired, to prohibit an artist residing, as Marc Antonio did, beyond its jurisdiction from copying the works of another artist who lived in a foreign country. But although poor old Vasari has thus made a hopeless muddle of his statements, yet if we diligently sift the matter, we shall, I think, find that the tale he tells is not without a true principle at bottom. Marc Antonio did not, it is true, affix Durer's mark to his copies of the " Little Passion," but he did to those of the " Life of the Virgin," 1 Vasari always speaks of Diirer as a Flemish artist. i44 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. previously published ; and in his copy of the large copper-plate, " Adam and Eve," 1504, he has not used the ordinary Diirer monogram, but has signed the tablet thus: — Albert Dvrer NORICOS Faciebat 1504, exactly the same as it is in the original. The omission of the Diirer monogram in the copies of the " Little Passion " becomes, therefore, significant, and is a better argument for the fundamental truth of Vasari's narrative than its insertion would have been, for it looks very much as if Marc Antonio had been prohibited, as Vasari says, from signing his piracies with the Diirer monogram between the time of the publication of the " Life of the Virgin," and that of the " Little Passion." Ottley, indeed, thinks it very probable that Diirer, who enjoyed the especial protection of the Emperor Maximilian, might have been enabled through the Imperial Ambassador at Venice, to lay his complaints before the Government, and thus obtain the prohi bition Vasari mentions. Ottley likewise points out that Marc Antonio did not use the mark of the uninscribed tablet until after he left Bologna, that is to say, until after he had forged the Diirer tablet, which it so strongly resembles, and had been prohibited from con tinuing to use it.1 Altogether I am afraid the case, although somewhat different to what Vasari has stated, looks just as black for the great Italian engraver as he has represented it. But no one who has any acquaintance with the works of the two artists is likely to be deceived by Marc Antonio's copies, for although he might imitate the signature of Diirer with exactitude, he was far too great an artist and too original a genius not to infuse a portion of his own mind even into his plagiarisms ; accordingly we find that, however faithful his copies are in detail, there is a certain difference of thought and feeling in them, a certain touch of Italian ideality that distinguishes them at once from the originals, and renders them less faithful repro ductions of Diirer's works (although, of course, of infinitely more worth as distinct works of art), than many of the copies of inferior artists. 1 The Marc Antonio tablet is similar to Durer's, but without the monogram. IMITATORS AND COPYISTS. 145 Next after Marc Antonio, the most distinguished copyists of Durer's works are Virgil Solis, an excellent engraver of Nurnberg, who usually signed his copies with his own initials, Hieronymus Wierx, whose faithful reproductions are well known,1 J. C. Vischer, Ulrich Kraus, Martin Rota, Joh. van Goosen, Hieronymus and Lambert Hopfer, and Erhard Schon. These are only a few names out of the large army of Durer's imitators and copyists, but it is beyond the limits of my subject and my knowledge to give any critical account of this parasitical host, or to enter into the respective merits of the men who composed it. Suffice it to say that Heller gives a list of more than three hundred artists who worked after Diirer (Kiinstler welche nach Diirer arbeiteten), and he often enumerates as many as seventeen copies of one engraving.2 1 Wierx executed most of his copies of Durer's works before he was twenty years of age. His copy of the Knight Death and Devil was made when he was only fifteen. It is without the Diirer monogram, and on the tablet is the date 1564. 2 The Rath of Nurnberg seems to have done its utmost to prevent the wholesale piracy that went on of Durer's works, but even an "honourable" and absolute Rath was unable to stop the dishonest trade. On October 1st, 1532, the Rath summoned all the booksellers of the town, and solemnly warned them against selling pirated works. After this it passed the resolution to write to the towns of Strasburg, Frankfort, Leipsic, Augsburg, and Antwerp, and beg them to prohibit the sale of Durer's pirated engravings in their domains as well as in other places of the Holy Roman Empire. X;) 1 A'Wa^^^ "V-V CHAPTER II. WORKS FOR THE EMPEROR MAXIMILIAN. " Ich bin ein Mann, wie ein ander Mann Nur dass mir Gott die Ehre gann." " I am a man like any other one, But God has made me to be Honour's son." l The Emperor Maximilian was one of the most intellectual monarchs that Europe has ever seen. In spite of the constant wars in which he was engaged, he found time to keep up a close correspondence with many of the greatest scholars of his age, and entered with the zeal of a scholastic doctor into the philosophic disputes of his day. He planned, if he did not himself compose, several literary works, and in every way in his power encouraged learning and promoted scientific and historical research. Moreover, he was not only a patron, but a true lover of the fine arts, and was himself, it is said, no mean artist. He did not, it is true, like the popes and princes of Italy, expend large sums of money in paintings and sculptures, probably because he had not the money to spend ; he has left us no Sistine Chapel, no Raphael Stanze, but he did what he was able, and employed the best artists of Germany in executing for him a series of works, which had, at all events, this merit, — that they were capable of reproduction, and that his subjects were therefore able to enjoy them as well as himself. Maximilian, regarded from an artistic point of view, is chiefly known as the patron of wood-engraving ; for besides the works upon which, as we shall see, he employed Diirer, he likewise originated three other 1 Couplet said to have been made by the Emperor Maximilian in answer to some one who sneered at his claims of long descent. THE EMPEROR MAXIMILIAN. 147 great series of woodcuts, known by the titles of " Sir Theurdank," " The Wise King," and " The Triumphs of Maximilian," executed chiefly by Hans Burgmair and Hans Schaufflein. That so many of Maximilian's plans were impracticable, and so many of his undertakings unsuccessful, was less the fault of the man than of the age. His comprehensive intellect saw far beyond the horizon of the century in which he lived, and he unwisely tried to hasten the march of time by anticipating some of its results ; thus it happened that his schemes often failed, and posterity, which judges of a hero's greatness chiefly by his success, refuses to see that his failures were often nobler than other men's successes. But it is no part of my task to vindicate the heroism of failure ; I have nothing to do here with Maximilian's personal character or political aims : it is simply in his relations with Diirer that he has to be considered in this chapter. Unfortunately we have very little authentic information concerning the personal intercourse of the Emperor and the Artist : although Diirer must frequently have been admitted into Maximilian's society, he has left us no account of his interviews with " his King," as he always calls Maximilian. One would have liked to have known how the great Emperor talked and reasoned when Diirer took his portrait in that " little room high up in the palace at Augsburg ; " whether he was impatient of the sitting, grudging the time taken from affairs of state, or whether he lingered talking art with the artist, and projecting grand works that could never be executed : but Diirer has told us nothing of all this, and almost the only interesting piece of information that we have concerning the personal relations of Diirer and Maximilian lies in a little anecdote related by Melanchthon, which we may unhesitatingly accept as true, for Melanchthon heard it, it would seem, from Diirer himself. The story is as follows :— One day, whilst Durer was occupied in making some design or sketch for Maximilian, the latter, to amuse himself, took up one of the artist's charcoal crayons that was lying about, and began himself to sketch something ; his progress was, however, constantly hindered by the breaking off of the stick of charcoal, and he complained to Durer that he could do nothing with it ; whereupon Diirer took it out of his hand, saying, "This is my sceptre, your Majesty." He then taught Maximilian how to use it in an artistic manner. U 2 ,48 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. Besides this, we have the oft-told story which has been applied to almost every artist who has ever happened to enjoy kingly favour, that the Emperor (it does not much matter what emperor) rebuked a proud nobleman of his court whose dignity was touched by being asked to perform some trifling service for the painter, by the famous speech, — " Out of seven plough-boys I can, if I please, make seven lords, but out of seven lords I cannot make one Diirer," — or Holbein, or Titian, accord ing to the need of the narrator. Furthermore, it is stated that Maximilian granted Diirer a patent of nobility and the well-known Diirer crest, but there seems to be no real foundation for supposing that such was the case. The opinion to this effect most probably arose from the fact that Maximilian really granted, not to Diirer alone, but to the whole Guild of Painters in Nurnberg, a coat of arms, — three silver shields on one large shield, gules (or, as is now more usual, on an azure field), but I cannot find any record of his ever having granted any armorial coat to Diirer especially for his own use. The device which Diirer adopted (as perhaps did his father before him) for his crest, — the pair of open doors on a shield, with a sort of pent-house roof above them, and three steps leading up to them, — was probably a rebus on his name, Diirer or Thiirer, as his father and Diirer himself in early life appear to have spelt it, Thtir in German signifying door. The wit of former times delighted, we know, in such exercises, and could not refrain from them sometimes even when com posing an epitaph, as witness the many punning tombstones that we meet with in our churchyards ; it is not, therefore, at all extraordinary to find it cropping up in an artist's crest, but it is scarcely likely that it was solemnly bestowed upon Diirer as a patent of nobility from Maximilian : moreover, we find that he made use of it long before he had any dealings with "his King." His letters to Pirkheimer, for instance, in 1506-7, are all sealed with this device, so that it is absurd to suppose that it was invented for him by Maximilian, with whom he did not come into contact until about 15 12. But besides this shield with the open doors, Durer's ordinary crest, he sometimes made use of the coat of arms given on the cover of this book,1 in which the shield with the doors is only an accessory, the 1 Dr. Rudolf Marggraff, " Kaiser Maximilian I. und Albrecht Diirer in Nurnberg." 1840. Dr. Marggraff says that Diirer, as a member of the council alter genannter of Niirnberg, always made use of a large seal with these arms upon it. D URER 'S CO A T OF ARMS. 149 principal motive being the head and bust of a negro without arms, but with a wing (a curious idea, a winged negro !) springing from either side, and a large amount of conventional foliage falling around. The negro's bust is supported on a closed helmet, and under this leans, a little to the right, the usual shield. This coat of arms was executed by Diirer in wood-engraving in the year 1523. The impression on the cover is copied from the woodcut, which is now rarely met with. It may be, of course, that this was the coat of arms granted by Maximilian, but I cannot find any proof that it was, and am inclined to believe, as before stated, that the story refers to the arms of the Guild of Painters in Nurnberg, and that Diirer in his individual character was not indebted to Maximilian for any arms or patent of nobility whatever. It is by no means uncommon, certainly, to find princes paying for substantial services in this cheap manner, but Maximilian, as we shall see, had a different although quite as inexpensive a method of paying his debts. It was, as I have said, most probably in 15 12 that Diirer was first employed by the Emperor. Whether Maximilian himself, or Stabius his crown poet and " Historiographer " as he styles himself, first con ceived the idea of the great Triumphal Arch, does not appear; but at all events the idea when once conceived met with the Emperor's decided approval, and it grew and grew until at last it arrived at such colossal dimensions that it is surprising that any artist was found able or willing to give it an outward shape. The idea was nothing less than this, to set forth in one great woodcut the life and illustrious deeds of the great German Emperor Maximilian I., together with his ancestral history, family alliances, and the most important events of his reign. This laudatory history, it was decided, should take the form of a triumphal arch, "after the manner of those erected in honour of the Roman Emperors, some of which are destroyed and some still to be seen," and Diirer, who had no doubt become acquainted ' with Stabius at Pirk heimer's house, received the commission to furnish the design for this gigantic undertaking. But Diirer, with a prudence for which one would scarcely have given him credit, desired some assurance of payment before he began such an important work. This might have caused some difficulty, for the Imperial treasury was always empty, had not Maxi milian bethought him of an excellent method of paying his artist, and yet not robbing himself. A letter from the Emperor Maximilian to the i5o LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. Rath of Nurnberg, bearing the date December 1 2, 1 5 1 2, is still preserved, in which he enjoins the Rath to hold "his and the empire's true and faithful Albrecht Diirer exempt from all the town taxes and rates in consideration of our esteem for his celebrated art," and also no doubt because of " several sketches that he has made for our undertaking with good diligence ; and he has furthermore professed his readiness hence forward to do his utmost that we may receive particular pleasure," i.e. in the execution of the Arch. But the Rath persuaded Diirer voluntarily to forego this privilege ; it feared perhaps that it would prove too unsafe a precedent, and Diirer for a long time appears to have received no payment at all for his work ; for although the Emperor, on finding that the Rath did not fall in with his scheme for paying for his works of art out of the town rates, granted him a pension of 100 florins a year, he does not seem to have received the money very regularly, for in an undated letter addressed to a certain Herr Kress (no doubt a member of the Kress family at Nurnberg) he begs his correspondent to find out whether Herr Stabius had done anything in his matter (meiner sach) with the King's Majesty, and to let him know how the matter stands. " But if," he goes on to say, " Herr Stabius has done nothing in my matter, or my desire was too difficult for him to attain, then I pray of you to be my favourable lord with his Majesty .... Point out to his Majesty that I have served his Majesty for three years, that I have suffered loss myself from doing so, and that if I had not used my utmost diligence his ornamental work would never have been finished in such a manner, therefore I pray his Majesty to reward me with the 100 guilders. You will know what to do in the matter." The case certainly seems very hard for the poor artist, who, as this letter informs us, after having worked for three whole years at a design in which one would imagine he could not have felt very much interest— for he was only allowed to work out in it another man's ideas, and had very little room for the display of his original fancy— 1 See "Reliquien Albrecht Durer," where this letter is given in full. Dr. Campe con siders it was written in the time of Charles V., and was meant to remind that Emperor of his grandfather's debt, but, as Dr. von Eye points out, it appears much more probable that it was written as a reminder to Maximilian himself, in the year 1515, the year in which the designs for the Arch were completed. The sentence " I have served his Majesty for three years " brings us to this date, for we know that the Arch was begun in 1512, and the date on one of the columns, which probably signifies the date when Diirer had done his pari of the work, is 1515. HIS PENSION OF ONE HUNDRED FLORINS. 151 had not only to give up the tax-exemption granted him as a mark of particular favour, but also could not obtain the payment of the 100 florins annuity (equivalent to about £40 of our present English money) granted to him, the greatest artist of Germany, as a reward for his services to an Emperor ! But either this letter to Kress, or Stabius' bringing his "matter" before his Majesty, accomplished something, for we find by an Imperial decree, dated September 6th, 15 15, that Diirer was assured the pay ment of his pension out of the tax paid yearly to the Emperor by the town of Nurnberg ; so that the town, this time, had nothing to lose by paying its artist. Even then, however, the Rath protested, but Diirer appears to have got his money pretty regularly until Maximilian's death, which happened in January 15 19. Upon this the "provident" Rath at once refused to continue paying Durer's pension, or to give him 200 florins in payment for drawings for which Maximilian had likewise given him an order on his Nurnberg treasury, until the new Emperor, who was not then chosen, should confirm the old Emperor's promises. In a piteous letter to the Rath, dated April 29, 15 19, Diirer begs his " Provident, Honourable, Wise, Gracious, and Dear Lords '' to pay him the money due to him from the deceased Emperor, which he says he has well earned by the diligent manner in which he has worked for him. He holds Maximilian's order for the payment of his pension, " which I did not obtain," he adds, " without much trouble and many demands," and also a receipt in the handwriting and with the seal of Maximilian, for 200 florins, " to be paid to him as if to Maximilian himself, out of the town taxes due to the Emperor on St. Martin's day." He even offers, in case any future Emperor should lay claim to this miserable 200 florins, to leave the house that he inherited from his father in pledge to the Rath, in order that his gracious and provident (fiirsichtig) Lords might not suffer any damage in case of the worst. But it was all of no use. The Rath resolutely refused to pay the dead lion's debts until it was assured that it was safe to do so by the young living lion, Charles V., who was elected Emperor in June 15 19, and from whom Diirer at last, as he notes in his journal, " with great trouble and labour" (mit grosser Muhe und Arbeit) on the 4th of November, 1520, at Coin, obtained his "Confirmatia" i.e. the ratification of the pension granted him by Maximilian. As his journey to the I52 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. Netherlands was probably chiefly undertaken with the view of gaining this Confirmatia, and as he had to make interest with numerous courtiers both at the courts of Margaret and Charles V. before obtaining it, we can well understand that it must indeed have cost him " great trouble and labour," and all for the sake of ioo florins a year ! Truly art was not too well paid in Nurnberg in the sixteenth century ! After this it is pleasant to find that Durer received his pension regularly until the time of his death. His receipts for the same, from 1521 to 1527, are still preserved in the archives of Nurnberg. But we must now turn from the consideration of the payment that Diirer received for the works he executed for Maximilian, to the works themselves. The Triumphal Arch of Maximilian, the most important of these works, forms, when the 92 separate blocks of which it is composed are put together, one huge woodcut, 10 feet 6 inches high, by 9 feet wide. It is almost impossible to give the reader who has not seen it any idea of this elaborate production. Like " The Wise King," " The Triumphs of Maximilian," and " The Adventures of Sir Theur- dank," it is intended to show forth in allegorical representation the glory and might of the German monarch, who, in spite of his humility on his death-bed, appears to have liked glorification during his life. The Arch itself, which is somewhat in the form of the old Roman triumphal arches, has three gates or entrances, the centre one being named the Gate of Honour and Power, and the two side entrances respectively the gates of Praise and Nobility. Above these gates rise three great towers, of which the highest is called by Stabius " the Grand Tower," and at either side are pillars with the most fantastic devices, all, however, intended to set forth some allegorical meaning : thus, six chained harpies are supposed to allude to conquered temptation, and two Archdukes in full armour keep watch for the possible enemy within or without Two men hold a large fruit and flower garland swinging above the middle entrance, in the centre of which a female figure holds forth the Imperial crown ready for the head of Maxi milian when he shall pass through the Arch. But the principal part of this remarkable design is the great genealogical tree of Maximilian's line, which rises above the Arch itself to the very top of the woodcut. Three female figures, represent- ARCH OF MAXIMILIAN. 153 ing France, Sycambria, and Troy (for Maximilian claimed descent from Hector of Troy), stand at the foot of the tree; Clodovic the Great, the first Christian prince of the line, comes next, and after him six-and-twenty ancestors, all represented in half-figure, with portrait like distinctiveness of character visible in their countenances. These six-and-twenty dukes, princes, and kings bring the line up to the Emperor Friedrich the Pious and his wife Leonora of Portugal, the parents of Maximilian. Then follows Maximilian himself, with his first wife, his beloved Mary of Burgundy,1 and the whole of his family. Philip the Fair of Spain, Maximilian's only son, stands in the middle, a full figure in armour, between his two sons, Charles (afterwards Charles V.) and Ferdinand, and his four daughters. Maximilian's daughter Margaret, afterwards Regent of the Netherlands, and Philip of Spain's wife, complete the group. Besides this ancestral and family history, we have also a pictorial representation of all the most remarkable events in Maximilian's own life, comprised in four-and-twenty distinct cuts. Here are depicted the wars in which he engaged, the political alliances he formed, his daring adventures whilst hunting chamois on the Alps, his meeting with Henry VIII. of England, his marriage, and other scenes from his private and public life. All these separate little pictures are executed with the most delicate skill and minute accuracy, and are accompanied by explanatory verses by Stabius, miserable doggerel rhymes, which could only have been written by a crown-poet, but which serve the purpose for which they were intended, namely the laudation of the hero of the Arch, and likewise, what is much more important, enable us to understand the meaning of its designer; for few English people, it is to be feared, are sufficiently well versed in the history of Maximilian as to be able to comprehend all the allusions made in these pictures without some such key. It is therefore pleasant to find a verse above each subject stating, "This is the house that Jack built," &c. These verses are all cut in the wood, as are also the names of all the Roman emperors, Maximilian's ancestors, and others who are introduced, thus forming an integral part of the whole. It is however, as I have said, impossible for the reader to form any idea of this Arch from a written description. Its details are so 1 Strange to say, his second wife, the Italian Maria Bianca, is not represented in this line. X IS4 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. numerous and various that it would take pages to enumerate them ; and Heller, who has devoted thirteen of his • closely printed pages to this purpose, leaves after all a most vague and confused impression on the mind of the student. I know at least that I myself, after wading through his inventorial description, simply found my head whirling with the number of subjects presented to it, without having been able to form a clear conception of any one, much less of the whole put together. Until I saw this great Arch I had no notion of its intricate elaboration, but then I at once perceived how useless it was to attempt a description of it, such as Heller and other writers have given. No work of Durer's perhaps evinces more clearly than this the perfect mastery he had acquired over his art. " The extent and diffi culties of the task," says Dr. von Eye, " appear to have called forth the powers of the artist to their highest exercise. In no work of Diirer's do we find more beautiful drawing than there is here ; each single piece might be taken out and prized as an independent work of art." And yet we miss in it somehow the thought of Albrecht Diirer. The triumph that this Arch really expresses is the triumph of wood- engraving ; it is a perfect marvel of delicate and intricate cutting, and for this the Formschneider as well as the artist must receive his share of praise. Luckily we know in this case who the Formschneider was : Neudorffer, who was likely to know, tells us that it was Hieronymus Resch or Rosch of Nurnberg, the best Formschneider of his time, so that we feel tolerably sure that Diirer in this instance, at all events, did not cut his blocks himself. Indeed, considering the amount of patient labour that this great woodcut represents, it would be absurd to credit him with such a performance in the midst of all his other work. Jackson estimates that the execution of the whole of this design would occupy a single wood-engraver not less than four years ; even allowing him to engrave more rapidly on pear-tree than a modern engraver does on box, and supposing him to be a master of his profession. The Emperor him self, it is said, was greatly interested in the engraving of his Arch, and visited Hieronymus Resch, who lived in the Frauen Gasslein, very often, to see how the work progressed. During one of his visits it is related that a number of cats, pets of the Formschneider, came scampering into the Emperor's presence, a circumstance which gave rise to the proverb, "A cat may look at a king." But notwithstanding the Emperor's interest in the work, the VARIOUS EDITIONS OF THE ARCH. 155 engraving of it proceeded very slowly, partly, no doubt, on account of the Formschneider not being any more able to get his money than the artist, and it still remained unfinished at the time of Maximilian's death. Of course there was then no one to pay for. the great work. Diirer, as we have seen, could not get his 200 florins, and he and Resch obtained no further satisfaction than the permission to use the work as best they could for their own profit. They therefore at once published, as a sort of memorial of the deceased Emperor, twenty-one out of the twenty-four historical subjects included in the whole design, in the form of a large round woodcut with the Emperor's full titles and the date of his death in one corner. This woodcut appears to have been very successful, for it quickly went through four editions,1 Maximilian being, with all his faults, much loved by the German nation, and any memento of him being highly prized. Meanwhile the blocks fof the entire work remained idle on the hands pf Resch, who. probably was afraid of printing the whole design at his own cost and responsibility, until at the request of the Archduke Ferdi nand, grandson of Maximilian, they were at last, after various delays and disputes,8 sent to Vienna, where the complete design was finally published in 1559 by Raphael Hofhalter. The well-known Adam Bartsch likewise brought out an edition, the last that has been pub lished, in 1799. The places of such blocks as were then missing, he supplied with etched plates. But besides these two editions of 1559 and 1799 a few impressions of this work are still in existence, which were evidently printed by Resch, and at an even earlier date than the round woodcut. Most probably they were struck off as trial-impressions during the Emperor's lifetime to satisfy his impatience before the whole work was complete, for in each one of these impressions that has been discovered, the place for cut No. 24, which in the later impressions is filled up with a representation of the Milan war, is empty. One of these early impressions has, I believe, found its way into the British Museum ; two others are at Copenhagen ; another at Stockholm ; and another, it is said, was sold with the collection of the 1 The third edition has Latin text. The fourth edition was published after Durer's death, and contains the other three subjects, which probably were not ready at the time when the first edition was published. 2 Baader, " Beitrage," &c. X 2 I56 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. Count of Fries at Vienna. Strange to say, the copy in the Museum appears to have escaped the notice of all German writers on the subject, and yet I think that there can be no doubt that it is really one of the original proofs. For, firstly, the clearness and beauty of the engraving are far greater than in the cuts of the later editions ; secondly, the place for cut No. 24 is empty ; 1 and thirdly, the water mark on the paper is the same as that on the copy at Copenhagen, namely, the Imperial Eagle. This seems to me conclusive evidence that the impression here was taken about the same time as the other three that are known, and which, although differing from each other in slight particulars, all agree in the points I have named. It was bequeathed to the Museum in 1799 by the Rev. Mordant Cracherode, who probably acquired it at the sale of Mr. Charles Rogers' collection, for, according to an old writing preserved with it, it was in the pos session of the latter gentleman in 1744 This writing likewise states that it was formerly in the Arundel collection. Such being the case, it could not certainly have been the copy said to have been sold with the Fries collection (a copy derived from the Praun cabinet) ; for the sale of that collection took place long after the impression in question had been safely housed in the British Museum. What has become of the Fries copy of the Arch I cannot say; for although Germans affirm that it is now in England, I can find no trace of it in this country, and rather think they must be deceived by some vague tradition of the one that is really here, about which they seem to have no accurate information. The impression in the British Museum is, undoubtedly, a rare treasure; and I strongly advise all English students of Durer's works to gain permission to see it, for only by this means can they form any idea of its marvellously elaborate execution.2 If the copy sold 1 I was deceived in the first instance about this cut, for some ignorant person, who did not know that its absence was a proof of the value of the impression, has cleverly pasted a later cut in its place, taking to himself no doubt great merit for thus completing the series. The verses above the cut are, however, absent, and, the cut itself is printed on different paper to the rest, so that its insertion is easily detected. 8 Mr. G. W. Reid, the keeper of the prints in the British Museum, tells me that he is thinking of having the separate parts of this great work put together, and then exhibiting it as a whole in one large frame. Such a plan would be most excellent, for the Arch would interest not only the art student, but likewise the general public, if it were properly explained. At present it is kept in strips in a portfolio, and very few people are aware of its existence. CAR OF MAXIMILIAN. 157 at the Fries sale be genuine and still preserved, the one in the British Museum will make the fifth perfect copy of the Arch as printed by Resch that is known to be in existence. Imperfect copies and detached cuts are often met with. I have dwelt thus long on this woodcut chiefly on account of its historical interest, and likewise as illustrating the relations between Diirer and the Emperor Maximilian, and not because I consider it, except in point of size, to be an especially great work of Durer's. He was trammelled in it, it is evident, by having to express another man's ideas ; and only here and there in some quaint fancy, or some grotesque exuberance, do we catch sight of his own rich imagination. It cannot therefore be reckoned strictly a representative work of his genius such as those that I have for the most part limited myself to describing, but it is nevertheless a marvel of art in its way. I must pass over more briefly the other works that Diirer executed for Maximilian. The Triumphal Car of Maximilian, confused by some writers with the " Triumphs of Maximilian " executed by Burgmair, is like wise an allegorical representation in glorification of Maximilian ; and thus, as Pirkheimer, who drew up the plan for it,1 writes to the Emperor, the car is ornamented, "not with gold and precious stones and other riches which are common to good and bad alike, but only with virtues which none but the truly noble possess." The Emperor is represented seated in his car in the virtuous company of Truth, Clemency, Justice, &c, graceful female figures who hold forth wreaths for his head. The driver of the car is " Reason " — "Ratio;" the wheels are inscribed "Magnificentia" and "Dignitas;" the reins " Nobilitas " and " Potentia : " whilst the female figures, who lead the twelve horses attached to the car, are called by the names of " Moderatio," " Alacritas," " Velocitas," and other abstract virtues. The whole is a somewhat prosaic and foolish allegory, which owes its entire merit to the splendid manner in which Diirer has carried it out. Little original, imaginative touches of his own enliven it here and there, such for instance as the fight of an eagle, signifying Maxi milian, with a dragon ; and the exuberance, but yet not exaggeration, of ornamentation was no doubt in this, as well as in the Arch, entirely the work of his own fancy : indeed Pirkheimer, in his letters to 1 This plan is now in the possession of Herr Cornill d'Orville. i s 8 LIFE OF ALBRECHT D URER; Maximilian on the subject, gives Diirer much of the credit of the plan itself, but one cannot help thinking that if he really had much to do. with it, . he. must have been terribly overpowered at the time by his friend's classical learning, or he would have designed something" of far deeper meaning than these worn-out scholastic entities. This work also was engraved on wood by Resch in the most excellent manner. - It is composed of eight blocks joining on one to another, and is about 7 feet 6 inches long by 1 foot 6 inches high. The first edition was brought out- by Diirer at his own cost in 1522 1 (for the Emperor did not • live to see the completion of either his Car or his Arch) ; it has German text -. and a dedication to Charles V. The second edition, appeared in the following - year with Latin text. Two other editions have appeared since, and it has likewise been engraved on copper. - ... I may as well mention in this place a painting of a Triumphal Car on the walls of the hall ' of theA Rathhaus at Nurnberg, which many writers have stated was by Diirer himself. . There seems, however, no sufficient ground for supposing. this to be the case: he certainly received from the Rath in 1522, 100 florins "for the great trouble he had had with the sketches (Visirung) for the Rathhaus," but it is clear that a painting- is not here meant. The Rathhaus was, it is true, .re painted and decorated before the: Imperial Diet was held 1 there in 1522; but even if Diirer furnished some of: the designs for its deco ration, it is not very probable that he carried them into execution himself — indeed his pupil,- Georg Penz, is known to have painted the group- of musicians over the' entrance, the best of these wall- paintings; but all the paintings in the hall are now so utterly ruined and over-painted that it is impossible to judge of their original merits or their original painters. Of all the works that Diirer executed, for Maximilian, none, I must confess, give me so much pleasure as the charming pen-drawings that 1 It would appear from a notice in Baader's " Beitrage " that some at least of the figures belonging to this Car must have been printed before this date, for in 1518 a pedlar was brought up before the Rath charged with selling " some printed figures belonging to the Emperor's Triumph." This could not have been the triumphal procession designed by Burgmair, for it is tolerably certain that none of the cuts of this were engraved until after Maximilian's death, and therefore the triumph alluded to was most probably Durer's Triumphal Car. PRAYER-BOOK OF MAXIMILIAN. 159 he made for the borders of Maximilian's Prayer-BOOK. I know these drawings have been severely commented upon by solemn critics, who lament that he should have allowed his fantastic humour to run riot in such a place, and regret in this instance more than in any other his want of classical taste and conception of ideal beauty. What, they very naturally ask, have pipers, monkeys, warriors, North American Indians, Turks, foxes, hens, ' ducks, devils, satyrs, pigs, to do with prayers to the saints? Nothing whatever, of course; and yet no true lover of Durer's imagination would wish one of these fantastic creatures absent. Here the -artist's imagination had full play, unrestrained by the classical tastes of his learned friends Stabius arid Pirkheimer, and we see into what quaint realms of faery and wonder it conducted him. Side by side with nobly-conceived figures of the Saints, we have the most strange arid humorous representations. Thus, near a figure of a saint giving' alms, we find a fox who has stolen a hen; above King David playing on his harp we have a screeching water-fowl ; beneath a grand figure of St. Matthew, the temptation of St. Anthony, who is being offered something in a dish by a funny-looking old German lady with a high cap on her head ; (truly one would imagine that the tried saint would find no difficulty in resisting the lures of such a Hebe ! ) and in a representation of the Annunciation, a miserable little devil, upon whom the holy rays from above fall in burning hot drops, is tearing his hair and raising a terrible outcry. The solemn and the ludicrous are in this way inextricably mingled. Earnest and jest stand side by side, tragedy and comedy are acted together ! Stiff and correct-minded people, who feel offended at such associations, can naturally take no pleasure in a work like this; but even those critics who appreciate its charm, feel obliged, so it would seem, to make some excuse for Diirer having given the reins to a rich and grotesque fancy: We are told, apologetically, in Kugler and Waagen's Handbook : — " Here his task was not to represent a given subject of particular depth of meaning, but merely to fill up tastefully an allotted space ; and if he does not always seem to keep in mind the full meaning of the text which he has adorned with his arabesques " [no one certainly can accuse him of doing that], " still the play of fancy is neither whimsical nor extravagant, the humour never degenerates into vulgarity, as is often the case in this kind of ornament, and the combined effect makes so pleasing an impression ^o LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. on the spectator that criticism is content to be silent" finding it difficult perhaps to know what to say. If I thought any apology was necessary for this " play of fancy " in these borders, I might perhaps point out that Diirer by no means invented this mode of illustration. We find grotesque animals and strange fantastic creatures in almost all the illuminated missals and prayer-books of the Middle Ages (at all events in those of Teutonic origin), done by devout monks in their monasteries, who would have been horrified at the imputation of irreverence ; and Diirer and Lucas Cranach, who executed eight of these designs, but followed an old- established custom in making their borders " fantastic." There are but two copies of this famous Prayer-book now known to exist. One is at Vienna ; and the other, which is supposed to have been Maximilian's own particular copy, is now in the Town Library at Munich. The borders, however, are well known from Strixner's excellent lithographs, published in 1818 and 1850. A most perplexing work, belonging to this period, and probably bearing some relation to the Emperor Maximilian, is the large and rare woodcut known by the name of The Great Column. What the meaning is of this strange and ugly column no one has been able to find out. For my own part, I do not believe that it is Durer's work at all, so foolish and inartistic is it in design ; but as it is usually included amongst his cuts, I give a slight description of it. Two small naked angels hold up between them a large turnip, whose root goes down into the ground. From this turnip springs a tall column, around the base of which are three rams' heads and an animal skull. At the foot of the column sit two female monsters with lion's claws, long hair, wings, and dragons' tails, and on the top of the capital a horned satyr, crowned with leaves, and holding in his outstretched arms two wreaths ; these hang down to the third part of the column, where they are bound together by a knot of fruit. The four blocks of which the column is composed form, when put together, a cut 5 feet 4 inches in height. It is dated 15 17, just the time when Diirer was most busy with works for the Emperor; so that it may have been amongst " the many other designs made for his Majesty besides the Triumph," which Diirer mentions in the before-quoted letter to Kress, and for which he never seems to have received any payment beyond his irregularly-paid pension. PORTRAITS OF MAXIMILIAN. .61 Another elaborate composition, which, although it cannot be reckoned with works executed for Maximilian, yet bears such a relation to him that it cannot be passed over without some notice, is the rich woodcut representing the Apotheosis of the Emperor Maximilian, or his reception amongst the saints in glory. Heller places this cut amongst the " doubtful " ones, but other critics consider that it was a commission from Stabius — whose arms are seen in the corner— to Diirer, and was designed by him soon after Maximilian's death. The drawing and the composition are perhaps worthy of Diirer, and it is undoubtedly a finely-executed work, but yet there is something wanting in it (besides the monogram of the artist, which is absent) which induces me to think that Heller classified it rightly. It represents Maximilian kneeling before God the Father, in the courts of heaven, his imperial sceptre, sword, and symbolic apple laid at the feet of the King of kings and Lord of lords. He still, however, wears the imperial crown, but perhaps this has been converted into the golden crown worn by the elect. Six saints, including his patron saint, Maximilian, stand around. The "Little Crucifixion," a copper-engraving which I reserve to speak of in the next chapter, is the only other engraved work that Diirer is known to have executed for his Imperial patron. There only remain to be considered in this place the Portraits of the Emperor Maximilian. Whether the drawing in the Albert collection, taken at Augsburg, was the original of all these it is impossible to say, but most probably it was ; for all the other portraits resemble it. Besides, there is no record of Diirer having been honoured with any other sitting from his Majesty, whose vanity at all events did not take a personal form. Immediately after Maximilian's death, however, Diirer brought out an excellent portrait of him in wood-engraving. The Emperor is repre sented with the order of the Golden Fleece round his neck, and a cap on his head, with a medallion in the band of it of the Virgin and Child. He has a strong, good face, with a very pleasant ex pression. The inscription, " Imperator Caesar Divvs Maximilianvs Pivs Felix Avgvstvs," is written above his head ; not in a straight line, but at each side, and at the bottom of the cut, between the columns that enclose the V !62 LIFE OF ALBRECHT. DURER. portrait, is an old German inscription, stating that "The dear prince, the Emperor Maximilian, departed in a blessed manner from this life, on the xij day of January, in the lix year of his age, Anno Domini 15 19." The celebrated Earl of Arundel bought the original block of this portrait in 1623, at Nurnberg, from a dealer named Schwankhard. It would be interesting to discover whether it is still in existence. Another portrait very much like this, but without the columns and without the inscription underneath, was published shortly after wards. (Heller, No. 1950.) Besides these woodcuts, there are several painted portraits of Maxi milian in different collections, that are affirmed to be by Diirer. Indeed, as a rule, every portrait of Maximilian and Charles V. is by Albrecht Diirer, in the same way that every villanous portrait of Henry VIII. is by Holbein. There is one in England, I believe, in Lord Northwick's collection that Dr. Waagen has registered as genuine on the ground " that no one but Diirer could have painted grey hair with such exactitude;" but the most probably authentic oil-painting of Maximilian is the one in the Belvidere at Vienna. Eye likewise mentions a very beautiful water-colour portrait, " of evidently genuine origin," in the Library of the University at Erlangen, derived from the Imhof collection. CHAPTER III. ENGRA VINGS ON COPPER. "Comment oublier une gravure d' Albert Durer ne l'eut-on vue qu'une seule fois." Charles Blanc " The power and boldness of Albrecht," says Vasari, " increasing with time, and as he perceived his works to obtain increasing estimation, he now executed engravings on copper, which amazed all who beheld them." This is no less true at the present time than it was in Vasari's. After the lapse of more than three centuries we have still nothing to compare with them, unless it be the works of that other great , Teutonic engraver, Rembrandt van Ryn ; even now they " amaze " all who behold them, not only by their power, boldness, and marvellous execution, but by the number of new and strange ideas they present to our minds. " When," writes that excellent art-critic, F. von Schlegel, " I turn to look at the numberless sketches and copper-plate designs of the present day, Diirer appears to me like the originator of a new and noble system of thought, burning with the zeal of a first pure inspiration and eager to diffuse his deeply-conceived, and probably true and great ideas ; and all the heap of frivolous sophists and sweet explainers who succeeded him, seem like those would-be connoisseurs whose prattle is now to be heard in all markets both among amateurs of art and in every-day life."1 It is by his engravings that Albrecht Diirer is best known to the general public. Every one who has the least knowledge of German art has seen, in some state or other, the celebrated plate of " The Knight, Death, and the Devil," as it is usually called, the " Melen- 1 F. von Schlegel, " Beschreibung einer Reise nach Paris und der Nicderlanden." Y 2 1 64 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. colia," the " St. Eustace," and perhaps the " Adam and Eve ; " and having seen these, they have seen some of his most remarkable and most original works. The deep-souled genius of Diirer is, indeed, more distinctly manifest in his engravings than in any other of his works. Here it is that his bold spirit expressed itself with the greatest freedom. Here it is that his intellect first shook itself free from the conventional bonds in which the Church of Rome had so long held the art of Germany. Here it is that he gave utterance to the questions, the doubts, the despairs that tormented his soul as they did so many other great souls in that surging sixteenth century, when the old foundations of belief were shaken, and the House that claimed to be built on a Rock was well-nigh swept away by the onward wave of progression. Diirer' only, of all the great artists of the sixteenth century, has expressed in art anything of the restless activity, the noble longings, the widening vision, and the reforming faith of the age in which he lived. The painters of Italy, when their religious belief failed them, and the source from which Fra Angelico and Fra Bartolommeo drew their inspiration was no longer attainable to them, fell back on a classic Paganism, which only sought to express the utmost grandeur of form, the utmost beauty of life, the deepest glory of colour, without occupying itself too much with the needs of man's higher intellectual nature. Not so Diirer. It is to this higher intellectual nature that he constantly appeals. Those who seek merely sensuous pleasure in pictures need not turn to his ; they are often, indeed, hard and unbeautiful, and the meaning, when we arrive at it, is almost invariably a sorrowful one — a lesson of pain, sin, conflict, and :ath. In many of his engravings, besides those that are distinctly sym bolical, we see dimly that there is some deep underlying thought, some hidden meaning which we endeavour in vain to find out ; for the mind of Albrecht Durer is not easy to fathom, and often when we are regarding, as we imagine, a homely and realistic represen tation of German life, we are startled by some strange suggestion, some wild fancy, some hint at an unknown mystery which at once lifts the subject from the region of the commonplace, and sets it in the realm of imagination and mystery. Look, for instance, at the plate known as " The Promenade " (Der Spaziergang), or " The Knight THE KNIGHT AND THE LADY. THE FANTASTIC ELEMENT IN ART. 165 and the Lady," which to all appearance represents a loving fifteenth- century couple of dignified mien taking a quiet evening walk; but if this is all the picture intends, what is the meaning of that grim skeleton who watches from behind the trunk of a tree, holding with one bony hand, the hour-glass of Time upon his head and grinning sardonically at the pair as they pass? In like manner, in one of his drawings the skeleton of Death stands behind the figure of a young lady who is adorning herself at the looking-glass, and gives a strange ghastly effect to what would otherwise be an ordinary genre subject. This idea of Death, indeed, seems to have been ever lurking in Diirer's mind. "Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee," is the warning he gives, and Vanitas vanitatum the lesson he teaches ; the sadness of the preacher had laid hold of the soul of the artist, and he also spoke from the depths of a nature that was stirred by the evil done under the sun. But although all Durer's works are thus marked, so to speak, with the monogram of his individual mind as well as with his well- known A. D., he is none the less pre-eminently the representative . artist of Germany. The German mind in its high intellectual powers, its daring speculative philosophy, and yet deep-seated reverence ; in its patient laboriousness ; in its idealism and in its realism ; but, above all, in its strange love for the weird and grotesque in art, is faithfully reflected in all that he did. That peculiar element in German art, which writers on the subject have called the " Fantastic element," and which, as I have elsewhere said, appears to have arisen from a lingering remembrance and love for the old Scandinavian mythology with its valkyrs, its ice giants, its world serpent, and all its uncouth monsters and impersonations of the powers of nature, has unrestrained play in Durer's art. In spite of his general solemnity of meaning he loves to wander into wonder land, and to tell of the fantastic shapes and unearthly beings that are to be found there. He especially delights in the animal kingdom, and draws monkeys, rabbits, cocks, &c, with evident relish of their individual humour; he even introduces them prominently into many of his sacred subjects, and represents his Virgins and holy personages surrounded by quaint animals of all descriptions. One of his Madonnas is, indeed, known as " The Virgin with the Animals," so 1 66 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. many forms of animal and insect life disport themselves in uncon strained enjoyment about her; several owls, a parrot, small birds of all kinds, a fox, a dog, a butterfly, a stag-beetle, a crab, a frog, a snail, a dragon-fly, a stork, two geese, and a donkey, being all included in this wonderful picture.1 This rich luxuriance of ideas, and this fanciful character of Durer's art, have been severely censured by writers who can see no beauty except in the severe and correct forms of classic art, and who admire nothing but " The glory that was Greece, And the grandeur that was Rome." The Venetians, Diirer himself tells us, blamed his works for not being according to ancient art ; and Raphael is said to have exclaimed, when he saw his engravings, " Of a truth this man would have sur passed us all if he had had the masterpieces of art constantly before his eyes as we have." Vasari likewise kindly apologizes for the rude German artist by saying, that the reason that he has not done better was because "for want of better models he took one or other of his apprentices when he had to design the nude form, and these must have had very ill-formed figures ; as, indeed," he adds, with true Italian conceit, " the Germans in general have when they are undressed, although one sees many in those countries who appear to be fine men when they are dressed." Nothing like making facts to fit one's ifjieories ! Even Kugler, one of the most appreciative of Durer's critics, laments that " he was unable wholly to renounce the general tendency to the fantastic — a tendency which essentially obstructed the pure develop ment of his power as an artist;" and numerous other writers whom I could quote all agree that Diirer would have been a greater artist had he had Italian training, and had he modelled his art on that of Greece instead of indulging a wild Teutonic imagination. But it seems to me that no one can thoroughly understand or enjoy Durer's art unless they regard this "strange tendency to the fantastic" as one of its chief charms. It is a very narrow perception of beauty which can only find it under one established standard. The art of the North has a peculiar character and beauty of its own, and it is a sad ¦ Engraved by VEgidius Sadeler from a drawing by Diirer. MYSTER Y OF D URER 'S ART. 167 limitation of our capabilities of enjoyment if we refuse to admire a "fantastic" poem of Albrecht Durer's because it has neither the epic grandeur nor the sweet lyric elegance of the great artists of the ancient world. Beauty in the ordinary sense of the term is not, it is true, one of the distinguishing characteristics of Durer's art. We cannot pre dicate of one of Durer's Virgins that she is necessarily beautiful of face and form as we can of one of Raphael's, and yet beauty of some sort is to be found, if we look for it, in every one of his representations of her. The strange figure of "Melencolia" is certainly not beau tiful, according to our preconceived notions of beauty ; yet if you look long enough at that grand winged woman, she awes you with a solemn sphinx-like beauty of her own, which is something apart from mere sensuous loveliness. Again, the stolid female figure with the massive braids of hair and fantastic crown who is about to be kissed by the hideous satyr, in the plate known as "Death's Coat of Arms," almost repulses you at first by her extreme ugliness ; yet after a while you find you are strangely attracted by her, and are gazing into her deep eyes, vainly endeavouring to penetrate the mystery in which she seems enveloped. This feeling of mystery, this sense of some hidden meaning, in so many of Durer's works, adds wonderfully to their interest ; for they are not merely childish symbolical puzzles, like many of the repre sentations of moral attributes which were so fashionable at one period, but they speak forth truly, and in noble realistic language, the thought of the artist ; the realism indeed of these weird engra vings, and their minute accuracy of detail, are amongst the strangest facts about them ; their wildest conceptions are patiently worked out into substantial forms, and the deepest thought is often expressed in the simplest manner. Some writer, I forget at the moment whom, speaks of being " haunted " by Durer's " Melencolia." He says that that grand brood ing woman entered into his dreams and gave him no rest night or day. I can well understand this feeling. There is a certain vivid force about Durer's creations that gives them a terrible reality: they have, so to speak, a body as well as a soul, and thus they lay hold of our memory with a strength that no mere disembodied imps of the imagination could exert. l6£ LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. This realism of the fantastic imagination is a quality common to many great artists. What can be more weird for instance, and at the same time more real, than some of the descriptions in Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner"? "The skinny hand so brown" of that ancient man is laid upon us as well as upon the wedding guest, and we likewise are haunted by those dead men standing together on the rotting deck, and feel as though they fixed on us "Their stony eyes That in the moon did glitter." The whole poem indeed holds us fast by the same sort of mysterious fascination as that exercised on the wedding guest. This is precisely the effect that many of Durer's engravings have. They lay hold of us, whether we will or no, and force us sometimes to turn from the admiring contemplation of much more beautiful creations of art to listen to their sad strange stories. The print known by the titles of " THE KNIGHT, DEATH, AND THE DEVIL," " The Horse of Death," and " The Christia^TKriigEPlsee in'usfFafionJT'is perhaps the most celebrated of all Durer's engravings. All critics agree that it is one of his very finest works, and all agree that he meant something by it, but here their unanimity ceases, for every critic has a theory of his own as to what this meaning really was. A knight in full armour, with sword at his side and lance in his hand, rides through a wild rocky defile with Death and a horrible fiend for his close companions. Death, or Time it may be, rides a little in front of the knight, on a lame horse, the head ^fAvh-crTi-Tbent nearly to the ground as it limps along. He carries an hour-glass in one hand : the sand" in it has nearly run out, and he holds this up before the knight with a sorrowful expression on his ghastly countenance. His head and neck are encircled with snakes that twist round the sharp pointed crown he wears in token of his sovereignty, and his long white beard falls down on his hollow chest. A fearful demon of loathsome animal form follows close behind the knight's horse and stretches forth his claws to clutgh his. prey, which, however,. .be. does not quite reach. But_the_ knight takes no he__d_QL-tliese~fearf4a-l--appaxitions : _he..is. not in the least like one, who THE KNIGHT, DEATH, AND DEVIL. THE KNIGHT, DEATH, AND THE DEVIL. 169 " On a lonesome road Doth walk in fear and dread, And having once turned round, walks on And turns no more his head, Because he knows a frightful fiend Doth close behind him tread." Whether conscious or not of his ho.QJJaIa_£fltn^p.anions, he is at all events unmovedbytheir presence and^ojds^on to his purpose, wRafever that may be, undismayed by the powers of death and hell. Nothing catfequai the steadfast deternnnaJdQi^&-£4i-is^feireer"The furrows of care and thought line his cheeks, but his mouth is set in firm resolution, and his eyes look straight forward on the road he is travelling, a road from which he will not be held back by any presentiment of coming danger. Is this road a good or an evil one ? Is the end he is setting forth to attain a righteous or an unrighteous one ? On this principal point the commentators on this picture are wholly disagreed ; some representing the knight as an evil man going forth to do deeds of darkness, and for whose soul the Devil is waiting, and others declaring him to be a Christian soldier pursuing his noble course through life undaunted by T_Ee~Terrors~of the valley "of the shadow of death. Thus Heller interprets this picture as follows : 1 — " In a wild rocky landscape a knight is seen in the foreground wending his way towards the left. He is in the full knightly armour of that period, although his horse is not in armour, but in ordinary harness. He guides his horse with his left hand, and holds a lance in his right, on which hangs a fox's skin, signifying cunning. His sword hangs at his left side, and on his right there rides, on an old tired-out horse, which has a bell round its neck, Death, the King of Terrors, in frightful human form ; on his head is a crown which, as well as his neck, is wound round with snakes. In his right hand he holds an hour-glass, the sand of which has already run through one- third, and this he shows with a fearful look to the knight, meaning by this, ' Turn from thine evil ways, for thy life will soon be over, and in a short time thou wilt belong to the evil one,' who stands behind with the frightful face of an animal that has long ears and two twisted and one bent horn. His feet are those of a satyr, and a tail can also be perceived. In his left claw he holds a grappling-hook, and with 1 Heller, No. 1013. Z I?0 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. his right he nearly touches the knight's back. Under the horse runs the faithful dog of the knight, who accompanies him even to death and hell." Such is Heller's interpretation of the meaning of this picture, and he has been followed with slight variations by several other commentators. But by far the greater number of critics take the opposite view of the knight's character, and represent him as bearing out the names they give to the plate— "The Christian Knight," and "T-he_ Knight of theReformation." Dr. von Eye, indeed, considers that DUrer harT in his mind the personification of the noblest type of German character, and recognises in the knight the " upright German man," who has "that attachment to a principle, to an idea, that marks every noble son of our race from his youth upwards," and who will not be frightened from endeavouring to realize his idea by the " Depths and Horrors of Life." Kugler likewise belongs to the number who take the favourable view of the knight's character. " I believe I do not exaggerate," he says, " when I particularize this print as the most important work which the fantastic spirit of German art has ever produced. The inven tion may be ascribed unreservedly to the imagination of the master We see a solitary knight riding through a dark glen ; two demons rise up before him, the most fearful which the human breast can conceive — the personification of thoughts at which the cheek grows pale — the horrible figure of Death on the lame horse, and the bewildering appa rition of the devil. But the knight, prepared for combat wherever resistance can avail, with a countenance on which Time has imprinted its furrows, and to which care and self-denial have imparted an expres sion of deep and unconquerable determination, looks steadily forward on the path which he has chosen, and allows these creations of a delusive dream to sink again into their visionary kingdom."1 Such are the interpretations that three of the principal writers on Durer's works have put upon this plate. They still leave it in mystery — a mystery to which every one must find a key for himself in his own understanding of its teaching. Without seeking to propound any particular theory, I would merely suggest that Diirer may have had a much plainer meaning in his mind than most of his interpreters have found for him. Are not Death and 1 Kugler and Waagen, " Handbook of Painting : German School." THE KNIGHT, DEATH, AND THE DEVIL. 171 the Devil the constant companions of every man in his journey through life ? The sand in the hour-glass of our lives, — is it not ever flowing, and does not Death await us at every turn in our road ? Evil thoughts likewise, animal desires, and selfish aims, — are they not perpetually rising in our minds, so that we need every instant to say, " Get thee behind me, Satan ?" and is not the victory to him who goes on steadily in the path of duty, nor swerves to the right hand nor to the left in his course through the narrow pass of life ? It may possibly have been Durer's meaning to depict the " Christian Knight" going forth to some difficult and dangerous undertaking, in which he knows he shall probably meet with his death. Satan seeks to hold him back ; thoughts of death rise up in his breast ; but he will not be deterred from the set purpose he has in view by any fears of the devil, or the grave, or any remembrance of the sweet home-life he has left in the castle on the hill. The Devil, therefore, cannot clutch him ; Death cannot make him afraid ; he but tightens the reins of his horse in his left hand, and goes on his way, determined, as the German hymn expresses it, "to ride through Death and through Devil."1 It was in the same spirit as this that Luther said, " I would ride into Leipsic though it rained Duke Georges for nine days running." It has been supposed by some writers that the " Christian Knight " was a portrait of Franz von Sickingen, one of the heroes of the Refor mation, and the unaccustomed letter S. on the tablet, bearing Durer's monogram at the left-hand corner of the picture, is thought to have reference to his name. But the features of the knight bear no re semblance to the known portraits of Sickingen, and besides there is no evidence to show that Diirer was ever acquainted with that turbu lent Reformer. Several old catalogues likewise assert that a certain Philip Ring, who was a sort of official messenger of the town of Nurnberg in Durer's time, is here represented; an idea founded on some foolish story about the said Philip Ring having had an alarming apparition of the Devil during one of his nightly journeys : in fact, there are almost as many different suppositions regarding the por traiture of the knight as about his character. One hypothesis being, that Diirer depicted himself under this guise ; and another — the most 1 The fox's brush which the knight bears on his spear signifies cunning in German ; it may mean here, that the knight has overcome the cunning or malice of his enemies, for the fox has been killed, and he carries the brush in triumph on his spear. Z 2 , 7 2 LIFE OF ALBRECHT D URER, extravagant of all— that the features of the knight are those of a criminal who was executed in Nurnberg about the date of the com pletion of the plate, and whose name happened to begin with S, thus accounting for that letter on the tablet in the corner.1 But if the features of the knight be really those of some individual known to Diirer, the most probable conjecture seems to be that they are those of Stephen Baumgartner, the friend to whom, it will be remembered, Durer sends greeting in several of his letters. The reason for supposing this is, that in an altar-piece that Diirer painted for the Baumgartner family, the portrait of Stephen Baumgartner, who is represented on one of the wings in the character of St. George, bears some resemblance to the knight of the engraving ; and, further more, in the background of the painting there is the same rocky pass and castle on the hill as in the copper-plate. Nor is this view disproved by the fact that Diirer probably copied in his engraving a drawing that he had already made of a knight in armour in the year 1498. The figure of the knight is evidently taken from this study, now in the Albert collection at Vienna, but the features in the drawing are quite different to those in the engraving and in the painting ; there is no reason however why Diirer should not have portrayed his friend, and at the same time have made use of a former study for a knight on horseback.2 So much regarding the purport of this celebrated plate ; — its execu tion, as every one knows, is a perfect marvel of careful and difficult work. It is dated 1513, and therefore belongs to the most fruitful period of Durer's genius. It has several times been copied in oil, but no very good reproduction of it on copper has ever yet been achieved, probably on account of its enormous difficulty of execution. La Motte Fouque^s noble romance of "Sintram and his Com- 1 See an article on "Durer's Allegorical Engravings " in the Getitleman's Magazine for October 1866. Mr. F. H. Holt, the writer of this and several other articles on the subject, puts forward startling, and it must be owned somewhat ingenious hypo theses concerning the meaning of several of Diirer's best known engravings; hut unfortunately, as is too often the case with would-be discoverers, he proclaims his unverified hypotheses as established truths, and thus fails to render any real service to the students of Durer's works. 2 Over the drawing is written in Durer's handwriting, " Dy ist der rustung zu der Zeit in Tewyschlant gewest." This is the armour of that time in Germany. There are two other studies of this horseman in the same collection ; one with and one without the dog, but in neither is there any other figure. THE COAT OF ARMS WITH THE DEATH'S HEAD. 173 panions " was suggested, he tells us, by this engraving ; and that charming work therefore must be taken as one of the many interpre tations that Durer's meaning has received. I have dwelt thus long on this one engraving, because I consider it, and the "Melencolia" of the following year (15 14), to be two of the most characteristic works of Durer's mind at the period of its ripest development. After his return from Italy, in 1507, he seems to have renewed his strength like an eagle, for the activity of his mind, and the vast number of ideas to which it gave outward form at this time, are truly amazing. Several of his greatest works in wood-engraving belong, as we have seen, to this fruitful period ; some of his greatest paintings were likewise executed at this time, and most of his finest engravings on copper. But before this " blooming time," as the Germans call it, of his art, Diirer had already executed several very remarkable engravings, which must not be passed by without some notice, although I cannot attempt to give any detailed account of them, nor even to classify them in any regular order. The earliest copper-plate engraving that he is certainly known to have executed is dated 1497, and represents Four naked Women OR Witches, standing close together, with a large ball or globe hanging above their heads, on which are the letters O. G. H., which have been interpreted to mean " O Gott hilf," O God help — help us, from magic understood. Heller suggests that three of the women are leading the fourth, whose back is turned to the spectator, to their master the Devil, and that the new recruit, wavering in his service, utters the cry of " O Gott hilf ! " but this is entirely an hypothetical interpretation of the subject of the plate ; as much so, indeed, as that given by Sandrart, who names the Four Witches the Three Graces ! A skull and human bones lie on the floor of the chamber, and a devil in the background appears surrounded by flames and smoke. This plate was copied by the engraver known as Israel van Meckenen from Diirer, and not, as has been supposed, copied by Diirer from him. The Coat of Arms with the Death's Head, dated 1503, ranks among Durer's most finely executed works. An escutcheon, with a large skull for its only emblazonment, and a helmet at the top of it, from which spring a pair of wings and some conventional foliage, is supported by a woman of German type, with a strange I74 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. expression of countenance. Peering over her shoulder is seen the hairy head of a satyr, who seems to be about to embrace her. This plate is well known, and does not therefore need further description. Its execution is most masterly, and it is reckoned with his best works. The Penance of St. Jerome is a noble conception of the repentance of the grand old Father of the Church. St. Jerome, a powerful old man, whose ascetic practices have not been able entirely to subdue the fire of his great intellect, kneels alone in a rocky desert place, and beats his naked breast with a stone, looking up the while at the image of his suffering Redeemer, which he has set up on one of the rocks before him. The lion, his customary companion, and fitting symbolical representative, lies beside him. Good impressions of this plate are very rare. It has been often copied. The Penance of St. Chrysostom needs the explanation of the legend. This relates that a beautiful princess lost herself one day in the wood where the hermit St. Chrysostom dwelt. After long wandering she came to the door of his hut, and saw the holy man on his knees in prayer. She begged pitifully for shelter, which the saint for a long time refused, but at last, moved by her tears, he let her in, and assigned her one-half of his cell, drawing a boundary line across it, which neither of them was to pass. But the tempta tion proved too strong for the tried saint. The line was passed, and St. Chrysostom, fearing that he should sin still further if he suffered the woman to remain with him, threw her down a steep precipice, and betook himself to the wood, where he crawled about on all-fours like a beast, in order to expiate his guilt. Meanwhile the princess, who was miraculously preserved from destruction, bore a son, who, when he was about to be baptized by the Pope, declared three times that he would only be baptized by St. Chrysostom. The Pope, there fore, was obliged to desist, and the child might have gone unbaptized, but that at that very moment some hunters came in, bearing with them a strange wild beast which they had caught. The child on seeing it spoke again, and said, " I will be baptized by thee." Then said St. Chrysostom, " If it be God's will, speak again ; " and the child spoke again, and the saint knew that his sin was expiated. On seeking the mother of the child, they found her in the desert, and she related to them how God had taken care of her and her babe, and provided THE NATIVITY. THE ADAM AND EVE. 175 for them in the desert, "for," as she truly remarked, "nothing is impos sible to God." In the engraving the princess is seated in front of a rocky cave suckling her child. She is quite naked, and is more graceful of form, and more beautiful of face, than most of Diirer's female figures. There is, indeed, a certain tenderness about her that makes us think that perhaps Durer's sympathies were not entirely with the repentant saint, who is seen in the background crawling on hands and feet, with a beard reaching to the ground, but still with the glory circle in undiminished brightness over his head. The Virgin on the Half-Moon (Heller, No. 489), The Virgin and Child of the year 1503 (Heller, 564), and The Virgin with THE Monkey (Heller, 628). Of these the "Virgin with the Monkey" is perhaps the most celebrated, although I think it is far from being the most pleasing. The Nativity of the Year 1504 (see illustration). — The mother kneels in rapturous adoration before her new-born babe, who lies on a block of stone beneath the shelter of a humble dwelling that seems to have grown up amidst the ruins of some old castle or abbey. The massive stone-work and Norman arches of this feudal building form a striking contrast to the wooden beams, latticed window, and thatched roof of the habitable portion of the picturesque home. Joseph outside is occupied in drawing water, and an old shepherd in the background enters to the holy presence of mother and child with folded hands and on his knees. The heads of the ox and the ass are likewise seen in the darkness behind. The execution of this charming little print is most careful ; every minutest detail, every tuft of grass on the decaying wall, is faithfully rendered, and the bold manner in which the clump of bushes at the top of the ruined turret stands out against the sky, shows most admirable skill in composition ; take those rough branches away and the effect of the whole is marred. Durer's tablet, with the date 1504, and his monogram on it, hangs out as a signboard at the top of the dwelling. Adam and Eve (1504) is reckoned amongst Durer's principal works, and indeed, so far as execution goes, it can only be equalled by some of his very finest engravings. The tree of knowledge stands in the middle of the picture with Adam and Eve on either side of it. Eve is about to receive the apple from the serpent, who holds it in his 176 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. mouth, having but just plucked it from the tree ; but in her other hand she has already a branch of the tree itself with another apple upon it. Adam's glance is turned towards her, but neither of our first parents has much expression in the countenance, and Diirer seems to me to have entirely failed in expressing the momentous crisis of their history. Animals of all kinds, as was customary in all the older repre sentations of the Fall, surround them. A rat sits at Adam's feet and a cat at Eve's. A parrot swings on the branches overhead, and a cow and rabbit are together at the right ; an elk goes off into the darkness of the wood, and a goat — most likely an allusion to the sacrificial goat upon whom should be laid the sins of Eve's descendants — is seen in the distance. The effect of the engraving is greatly enhanced by the dark stems of the trees in the background throwing into strong relief the figures of Adam and Eve. The Prodigal Son (Heller, 477; see illustration) always strikes me as being one of the most tender and at the same time one of the most sorrowful of Durer's conceptions. I cannot analyse the feeling of profound pity that it awakens in the heart, but I am moved by it in the same way that I am moved by the loving parable it illustrates- It is said by some that Diirer represented himself under the form of the Prodigal ; 1 and indeed the well-formed features, the arched nose, and the long curling hair of the younger son, who kneels in agony of spirit amongst the swine he is tending, bear some resemblance to the artist's portraits of himself. If this were so, it gives us a deep insight into Diirer's frame of mind at the time when he executed this plate. The hungry soul of that young swineherd can never be satisfied, though he should fill his belly many times with the husks that the swine are eating. He has sinned, it is true, against heaven and in his Father's sight, but his restless, longing human heart cannot any longer find plea sure in the unthinking sensuality that his companions are enjoying ; his higher nature asserts itself, and even by his dissatisfaction of spirit he rises 1 In Rees' "Cyclopaedia" the writer ofthe article on the "German School of Engraving" distinguishes Durer's "Prodigal Son" by the title of "The Infant Prodigy." This appropriate name was no doubt derived from some French catalogue, in which, of course, the print in question would be called " L'Enfant prodigue," which the Encyclopaedist, with an equal knowledge of French and Diirer's prints, translated as I have stated. HE PRODIGAL SON. THE PRODIGAL SON. 177 above the contented swine that are grunting in peaceful plenty around him. They are not tormented by doubt, tliey have no longings that cannot be satisfied ; why should not he also eat of their husks and be filled ? Down on his knees at the swine-trough he wrestles with the temptation, and at last, from out his bitter agony, a resolution springs up in his mind, " I will arise and go to my Father." " How many hired servants of my Father's have bread enough and to spare, whilst I perish with hunger!" — a gnawing soul-hunger, a complaint that Diirer seems to have suffered from all his life. The farm- buildings in this plate are of the old-fashioned German sort, and give the idea of substantial comfort and well-doing. Every thing around is suggestive of rest and peaceful enjoyment — the cock on the dunghill, the ducks in the pond, and the doves on the roof are all taking their pleasure as well as the swine at the trough ; only the sad figure of the prodigal swineherd, with his cheeks sunken from hunger and his hands clenched in agonizing prayer, tells of the severe conflict going on within his breast. This plate is finished, even in its most minute details, with the greatest care. The hogs are evidently drawn from life, and the little pig that is trying to reach to eat out of the same trough with them is true to human as well as to porcine nature. The delightful little pigs in the foreground in their happy gluttony are indeed somewhat a relief from the too melancholy impression produced by this print1 These are the principal sacred subjects of the early period. Of the secular pieces, besides the Four Witches and the Coat of Arms with the Death's Head already cited, I may mention : — The Rape of Amymone (Heller, 801). — Amymone, one of the fifty daughters of King Danaus, is borne off by a sea-god of mournful aspect whilst she and some of her sisters are bathing. Such, at least, is the interpretation that is given by Heller and Bartsch of this plate. But if the grand sad old Triton had his pick of the bathing Danaides, his taste is certainly not to be commended in choosing Amymone, for a more ugly young woman, or rather old maid, one seldom sees than the fair creature who is seated, apparently in great comfort, on the sea-god's back. I do not, however, believe that Diirer had any [ ' Early impressions of this plate, with the water-mark of the Bull's Head, are extremely rare and valuable. Even late impressions are however good, the plate not having been much worn. A A 178 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. such classical myth in his mind when he designed this plate; but whatever he meant, one can hardly pardon him for making the object of the Triton's affections so ugly.1 The Family of the Satyr (Heller, 819), a small plate, dated 1505, seems to have been executed in a more cheerful mood; at all events it produces a more cheerful effect on the spectator than the Amymone. The family consists of mother, child, and goat-footed sire. The father plays on a pipe, to which his wife and child, who have no animal proclivities, but appear to be well-formed human beings, listen with evident satisfaction. The whole scene is one of pure light-hearted enjoyment The Dream (Heller, 854). — A prosaic-looking and portly gentle man has fallen asleep as he sits by a closed stove, and, prosaic as he appears, his fancy is disporting itself amongst the marvels and vanities of dreamland. A little flying demon, armed with a pair of bellows, blows into the ear of the sleeper. A naked woman, perhaps meant for Venus — for there is a winged love by her side, and there is no saying under what guise, or disguise, she may have appeared to an obese German gentleman of the sixteenth century — stands by his side, and appears to be whispering her sweet insinuations to him. Love is about to raise himself on a pair of stilts. The Offer of Love (Heller, 891) is accompanied by an offer of money, that seems to be a great deal more acceptable to the young and pretty-looking woman to whom it is made than the affection of the horrid old man who clasps her with one hand round the waist as they sit together on a bank, and with the other fumbles in his purse for coin to put into her hand, which she greedily holds out for this purpose. The horse of the amorous old knight is fastened to a tree at the side. This plate has had all sorts of absurd names given to it ; it has been called, for instance, Judith and Tamar, though for what reason it is difficult to find ; and it has likewise, equally without foundation, been supposed to have reference to the love affairs of an ancient member of the Tucher family in Nurnberg, who married a young girl in his old age. Another somewhat repulsive subject of this class is styled by Heller and others, A WOMAN DEFENDING HERSELF AGAINST AN ATTEMPTED Rape (Heller, 893), but probably the title that has been 1 Diirer himself calls this plate a " Mehr-wunder," sea- monster. SINGLE SUBJECTS. i79 found for it has nothing to do with Durer's true meaning. A horrible wild and naked man holds fast in his grasp a frightfully ugly woman, who struggles painfully to get out of his arms, catching hold of the stem of a tree that grows near to wrest herself away. The print is not remarkable for anything except its ugliness, for there is none of the terrible force in it that produces a sort of shuddering sensation in the etching of " The Woman borne off on a Unicorn." A PRODIGIOUS HOG (Heller, 1019).— It appears that such a hog as Diirer has here drawn, having "two bodies, eight feet, four ears, and two tongues," &c, was really born in a village near Nurnberg, for the " Nurnberg Chronicle " has preserved a record of it. This hideous monster, which for some time puzzled critics — who could not understand for what reason Diirer could possibly have invented it — was therefore really a sketch from nature — hog nature. JUSTICE, formerly styled The NEMESIS (Heller, 826).— A man sitting on a lion, with a sword and scales in his hand. The Little Fortune (Heller, 837). — A naked woman standing on a globe, with a thistle in her hand. The Great Horse, 1505 (Heller, 1009); The Little Horse, 1505 (Heller, 1000). — Both these plates have probably some deeper signification than appears ; they certainly do not simply mean, as it would seem at first study of them, to interest us in the anatomy and fine proportions of the horse, accurately as these are rendered. There is a vague sense of mystery about both of them that makes itself felt whilst we are only thinking of the magnificent manner in which the work is executed. That solemn warrior, with the huge helmet, whose head just reaches above the back of the Great Horse, what mighty enterprise is he meditating ? to what nation does he belong? and what is the meaning of the wings that lie at the feet of the warrior of the Little Horse ? and why is that pot of fire, or of incense, burning on the top of the ruined wall ? Such questions as these come naturally into our minds when we are regarding Durer's works. Explanations are, of course, easy to find, for Diirer is always suggestive of ideas. Yet the true answer, that is to say, the answer that he himself would have given had he been asked, is frequently not to be found. Much always remains that is enigmatical and mysterious — and probably Diirer himself was not in all cases conscious of the whole signification of his work. A A A 2 j8o LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. great creative mind, such as his, is often unaware of the full power of its own conceptions ; it is not moved by them in the same way that other people are moved ; indeed, it is often amazed at finding what a strange growth has developed from the germ it has planted. Diirer, especially, threw out his ideas on all subjects with such in credible rapidity that he cannot always have stopped to meditate on what interpretation might be given to them. In looking over any large collection of his prints, the mind becomes fatigued in a very short time by the vast number of new and profound thoughts that are presented to it. This is why I should recommend any one who desires to gain any real knowledge of Durer's works to study them one by one with diligence and patience, and by no means to attempt to examine a whole portfolio full at one sitting. It is only to the loving and thoughtful student that Diirer reveals anything of the true nature of his philosophy ; others may, it is true, admire his marvellous execution, and take a certain delight in his fantastic conceptions, but the real soul of the man remains for ever hidden from them, and therefore they fail to gain any insight into the underlying thought of his art. I think I have now enumerated most of the principal engravings bearing date before Durer's visit to Venice, or considered by Heller to belong to this early period of his art. There are, of course, many besides of more or less importance that I have not even named, for, as I have said before, I do not pretend to give a catalogue of Durer's works, but only to point out a few of the most significant. I now come to those bearing date after the Venice period, that is, after 1507. Foremost amongst these stands the engraved series of the Passion : The Passion in Copper, or the Passion in Kupfer as Durer calls it, to distinguish it from the Great Passion and the Little Passion engraved in wood. This Passion is, perhaps, less known at the present day than the other two, for good impressions of the plates are less frequently to be met with, but it is certainly in no way inferior, indeed I think it is decidedly superior, as a whole, to either of the others. The plates are about the same size as those of the Little Passion, but there are not nearly so many of them— the Little Passion consisting of thirty-seven, and the Passion in Copper of only sixteen plates. As in the other two Passions, the frontispiece represents the Man THE (GREAT) WHITE HORSE. THE PASSION IN COPPER. 181 of Sorrows. He stands on a slightly raised platform, beside a pillar, His arms crosswise upon His breast, and holding in one hand a scourge, and in the other a reed. His hands and feet are pierced as in the other representations, and the blood flows from His wounded side, so that it is evident that Diirer did not intend a strictly literal expres sion of the historical event ; but somehow the symbol here is not felt so perfectly as in the two touching figures of Christ that serve as frontispieces to the woodcut Passions. The slightly cowering attitude of Christ mars the grand dignity of the Typical Man ; and the Virgin and St. John, who stand below in sorrowful adora tion, do not express, as Diirer doubtless intended they should, the love and worship of Christendom, but only their own individual sorrow. Three crosses are seen through an arch on a hill in the distance. The plate is dated 1509, so that it would appear to have been the earliest of the three conceptions. Christ on the Mount of Olives is the subject of Plate No. 2, thus beginning at a far more advanced stage of Christ's history than the other Passions. The figure of Christ here is grandly conceived, but the manner in which He expresses His agony of spirit by throwing His arms up over His head is somewhat theatrical, and breaks the calm of the whole scene. St. Peter, who sleeps to the right, is a very noble figure. Dated 1508. The Betrayal (No. 3). — A rich composition of many figures, the grand one of Christ being well distinguished from that of Judas, who fastens his lips upon those of Jesus with greedy hate. A man, looking like a watchman, is conspicuous behind, holding in his hand a flaming torch: and in the far distance is seen the young man who left the linen cloth that he had about his body, and fled from the men who laid hold of him, naked. I do not remember ever before having seen this incident, recorded by St. Mark, introduced into a representation of the Betrayal. The usual incident— Peter cutting off the ear of the servant of the High Priest— is also depicted here in the foreground. Dated 15 10. Christ before Caiaphas (No. 4) is much the same in compo sition as the same subject in the Little Passion, only the figure of Christ is here a much nobler ideal. The right-hand man, who leads Jesus forward, is of the solemn old German type, and not at all the fiendish barbarian that Diirer has sometimes drawn. Dated 15 12. 182 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. Christ before Pilate (No. 5). — Pilate stands near a column, under a sort of portico, listening to a Jew who gives his false witness against Jesus. One of the soldiers who drag Christ forward is bending down. Dated 15 12. Christ scourged (No. 6). — Similar in treatment to the other Passions. Dated 15 12. Christ mocked (No. 7). — He holds a reed as sceptre in His hand, and wears the crown of thorns upon His head, which one of His tormentors is pressing down upon His forehead. Dated 15 12. Ecce Homo : Christ presented to the People (No. 8). — Here the composition is quite different to that of the other Passions. Christ does not look forth from a window, but stands on an eleva tion of two steps, with Pilate by His side, who merely takes hold of Christ's mantle, no insult being offered to Him. In the foreground, immediately facing Christ, is a man in a most curious costume. He is in armour, but he wears over his armour a long white linen garment, which reaches from the neck until it touches the ground both before and behind. It is open at the sides, so that the mailed arm and leg of the wearer are fully displayed ; indeed it chiefly resembles a long pinafore, such as girls used to wear some years ago.1 He also has on his head a very peculiar white cap, cut into scallops and hanging over his forehead. Dated 15 12. Pilate washing his Hands (No. 9). — Pilate sits on a raised seat, and a hideous little German soldier, with a high soft hat on his head, kneels before him with a basin, into which he is pouring water, in his hand. Christ, conducted by two soldiers, is led away below. Dated 15 12. Christ bearing the Cross (No. 10).— Christ does not sink beneath the weight of the cross as in the more celebrated repre sentation of this subject which Raphael copied, but bears it across his shoulder, only stooping slightly forward with his heavy burden. A brutal soldier, in fantastic mediaeval dress, is dragging him forward 1 Readers of " Froissart " will doubtless remember that Sir John Chandos is described as having met with his death from wearing a similar robe to this : " A large robe which fell to the ground, blazoned with his arms on white sarcenet." The brave knight stumbled over this inconvenient garment in a skirmish with the French, and was thus caught at a disadvantage by a squire, " a strong, expert man," who made a thrust at him with his lance, and killed him. THE PASSION IN COPPER. 183 by the mantle, of which he has tight hold at the neck. The figure of Christ is very grand and touching ; altogether I think this a nobler conception than the other representations of this subject. Veronica kneels by the side of Christ, and the Virgin and St. John follow in the press behind. Dated 15 12. The Crucifixion (No. i 1).— A simple and quiet treatment of the subject, but exceedingly solemn in the absence of all theatrical effect. It is strange to contrast Durer's earnest and pious representations of this subject with the magnificent displays of Rubens. The one master felt the truth of the scene he represented, the other seized on it as one calculated to show forth his own astonishing powers to the utmost. Dated 15 11. Christ taken down from the Cross (No. 12). — This, again, is simple in treatment. The arms of the cross are not seen, so that it stands in the centre of the print like a thick stem of a tree. Christ lies at the foot of it, with St John supporting His head, and the Virgin one arm. The Magdalene throws up her arms in the conven tional manner, and her stout and ugly German figure and vehement expression disturb somewhat the quiet of the awful scene. Another fault is that the Christ here does not look dead. Dated 1507. The earliest date of the series. The Entombment (No. 13).— Three disciples, one of them wearing a high-crowned fur or beaver hat, place the body of Christ in a stone tomb. The holy women and St. John stand by. Dated 15 12. The Descent into Hell ; or, Release of the Souls from the PRISON-HOUSE (No. 14). — Here again Diirer, as in the some what similar compositions in the Great and Little Passion, has entirely departed from the conventional method of representing hell ; indeed, I do not believe that he had any idea in his mind when it conceived this strange subject of representing the Catholic hell, or purgatory, in the meaning that was then attached to those terms ; the beautiful print lying before me seems capable of a far deeper and more universal application than this. These are not disembodied spirits, but real men and women, whom the coming of Christ sets free from the chain of their sins. The beams of divine love and pity have pierced the dark mansion in which they so long have dwelt, and gladly they accept the brother-hand that is held out to help them. The figure of Christ here is most grand : majesty and !84 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. love inextricably mingled ! strength and tenderness for ever combined ! But the principal idea that this figure conveys to my mind is that of Help — power to help — help to ascend from the underground abodes of doubt, darkness, and despair towards the blessed light of God's love, which shines over all His universe, although we sometimes bury ourselves in underground cells, and refuse to look out and see it. Possibly also Diirer may have had in his mind, when he composed these solemn but at the same time mystical and fantastic engravings, that strange passage in the Epistle of St. Peter, which alludes to Christ preaching to the spirits in prison. Such a dark hint as this gives of some unknown mystery would be sure, so it seems to me, to take hold of Durer's imagination ; and if once it had done this, it was pretty sure to receive outward shape. Everything that Diirer felt powerfully, he saw vividly. He did not simply copy nature, but, if I may use the term, I would say he created nature — that is to say, he gave to his abstract ideas a distinct, concrete form ; witness, for instance, his description of the death-bed scene of his mother (see p. 96). One feels in reading it that he really " saw," as he says, and not merely fancied, the figure of Death coming, and giving her " two great blows on the heart." He could have painted the whole scene with wonderful distinctness ; indeed, his simple words are so many strokes of the artist's brush which do really paint it for us. This, of course, is a faculty common to all great artists and dramatists. They all more or less project their thoughts into definite form, and then look at and mould them as something apart from themselves. Clear ness of vision, indeed, next to creative power, is the great distinctive attribute of the true artist ; and this clearness of vision, so far as his eye could pierce, Diirer had to a remarkable extent ; only he differs from most other artists in this, that he recognises that there is a region into which his eye cannot pierce, and which his mind cannot know, but of whose existence it yet is dimly aware. It is this hint of the unknown which gives his pictures such strange fascinating power. It is not so much what they say as what they do not say that moves us. In this print we are now considering, it is not the grand figure of Christ, solemn and beautiful as that is ; it is not the well-drawn figures of Adam and Eve, although Eve here is much pleasanter to behold than Diirer generally makes her ; it is not the noble and mournful face looking out wistfully from the vaults, although THE PASSION IN COPPER. 185 this awakens yearnings of sympathy in our hearts ; it is not the shapes bred of darkness that lurk around ; it is not even the great dragon curling over the arch through which Christ has entered, and poking at Adam's head with a spear — a dragon who, " Wroth to see his kingdom fail, Swindges the scaly horror of his folded tail." No, it is none of these things, but it is the sense of something beyond these things, something of which they are but the symbols, which affects us so strongly, and awes us with the same kind of giddy feeling we experience in looking down an abyss of which we cannot see the bottom. In execution this plate leaves nothing to be desired. It ranks amongst Durer's most finished works, as indeed do all the plates of the Passion in Copper. It is dated 15 12. Heller enumerates no less than eighteen copies of it. The Resurrection (No. 15). — Christ rises in a blaze of heavenly light, from which one of the awakening Roman soldiers is obliged to shade his earthly eyes, too weak to bear the glorious sight. The figure of Christ, standing on the slab of the tomb with the banner of peace in one hand and the other extended in blessing, is very nobly conceived. Peter and John healing the Lame Man at the Gate of THE Temple (No. 16). — This plate is often not reckoned in the series ; but although its subject is somewhat beyond the personal history of our Lord, yet from its being of the same character and size as the other plates, it is convenient to include it amongst their number. It is dated 1 5 1 3, a year later than any of the others ; it was therefore probably executed as an additional or supplementary subject. The face of the lame man in this print is very powerful and expressive ; he lies at the foot of one of the pillars of the Beautiful Gate of the Temple, and looks up to Peter (who is here different in type to the usual representations of him) for help, although a man with a beard, probably some noble Pharisee, stands close to him holding a big purse, from which he is distributing alms, in his hand. " Then Peter said, Silver and gold have I none ; but such as I have give I thee : In the name of Jesus of Nazareth rise up and 1. B 1 86 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. walk." This is the last plate of the set. It is dated, as already stated, 15 13. The Passion in Copper does not seem to have been ever published in book form like the woodcut series ; the plates were apparently put forth at different times, and in no regular sequence : Chelidonius, therefore, was not in this instance called upon to supply the work with Latin verses. It was never, so far as I can discover, published with text during Durer's life, but since his death the plates have often served as illustrations to prayer-books and devotional manuals ; numberless copies of this series exist, and even great artists have not disdained occasionally to borrow thoughts from it. Many of the paintings now designated in catalogues as after Albrecht Diirer are indeed merely so many ideas gathered by his followers from his printed works, and then expressed more or less faithfully, according to the power of the artist, in oils ; but, besides this direct copying of his own school, some of the great Italian masters of his day likewise used his thoughts pretty freely. Andrea del Sarto, for instance, received many suggestions from the works of the German master. Giacomo da Puntormo, a Florentine painter, is known to have copied an entire landscape from one of Durer's paintings ; and even the great Titian was indebted to him for the figure of an old woman selling eggs, in the Life of the Virgin series, which he has introduced in his celebrated Presentation in the Temple, painted for the Scuola della Carita.1 To the same year as the greater number of the plates of the Passion in Copper, namely 15 12, belong two pieces executed almost entirely, it would seem, with the dry point. The first of these is the figure of CHRIST WITH BOUND HANDS (Heller, 445), a very rare print, but weak in conception and execu tion ; the second represents St. Jerome (Heller, 770) in a rocky desert, seated behind a board laid across two projecting pieces of rock, and thus forming a table. An open book before him and a crucifix, to which he appears to be praying, stands at one corner of the rude table. Durer's monogram lies near the border of the print, and the date 15 12 is placed on a tablet in the sky. Early impressions of this rare piece are very difficult to obtain. The authorities of the British Museum lately gave a hundred guineas 1 Mrs. Jameson's " Legends of the Madonna," HIS ETCHINGS. 187 for an impression without the monogram of the artist, one of the eagerly sought prizes of collectors. The Holy Family, with Joseph and three other Figures (Heller, 648), is likewise a piece executed with remarkable fineness and beauty with the dry point. The soft warm effect, due to the burr, as it is technically called, which the dry point produces by throwing up the edges of the strokes, is very beautiful in early impressions. It has neither monogram nor date. Both Heller and Bartsch speak of this and the two preceding plates as having been etched on iron ; but it appears more probable that they were executed, as Ottley asserts, on a softer metal even than copper, and not by the aquafortis method, but simply with the dry point, the instrument with which Rembrandt accomplished much of his finest work. It is strange, considering that the invention of etching has been very generally ascribed to Diirer, that we have not more etchings by his hand, but I do not think there are more than six distinct etchings certainly known to be by him. None of these are dated before 15 15, and the process of etching must have been already known in the fifteenth century,1 so it seems very improbable that he was really the first to discover it. He may possibly have invented some improvement in the method. His largest etching represents a MAN BEARING OFF A NAKED WOMAN ON A UNICORN (Heller, 813). It is called by Bartsch "Le Ravissement d'une jeune Femme," and by others " Pluto carrying off Proserpine." It is a wild, weird conception, and produces a most uncomfortable, shuddering impression on the beholder. The woman borne off forcibly on the strange beast is frightfully ugly, and the subject altogether is dark and fearful. What Diirer meant by it, it is impossible to say, but I should think his meaning bore no relation to the names that have been given it. It must be a strangely unimaginative person who could suppose that he intended to depict any ordinary rape, and it is certainly a stretch of French politeness to describe the hideous creature who struggles in the arms of the rider of the unicorn as " une jeune femme." 1 There is an etching by Wenzel von Ollmutz in the British Museum, dated 1496. It is a satire on Rome, which is represented in the fonn of a monstrous woman's figure, with the head of an ass. Above it is written " Roma caput mundi!' B 1! 2 r88 LLFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. Christ seated and crowned with Thorns (Heller, 459) ; dated 15 15. Christ on the Mount of Olives (Heller, 425); dated 15 15. — These two plates are likewise etched, but they are not so powerful as the same subjects in the Passions. Heller gives an interesting history of the original iron plate of the latter of these two etchings. He says that Joseph Schopf, of Innspruck, discovered it in the eighteenth century in the possession of a blacksmith, and rescued it from being converted into horseshoes. From Schopf's possession it passed into the hands of the painter and engraver Johann Georg Schedler, who sold it finally to Heller, so that it is now, in all probability, preserved with the rest of Heller's treasures at Bamberg. The plate, Heller tells us, was in very good preservation when it came into his hands, which accounts for impressions of it being extremely rare. An Angel bearing the Sudarium, and flying in the air with other angels, holding the instruments of the Passion, — a very indis tinct print, — The Great Cannon (Heller, 1017), and a Study of SOME NAKED FIGURES, are the only other etchings with aquafortis decidedly known to be by Diirer, although there are several others ascribed to him. The Knight, Death, and Devil, already described, is the principal engraving of the year 15 13; but Heller likewise ascribes THE LITTLE Crucifixion, as it is called, The Judgment of Paris, and The small round St. Jerome, to this period. The Little Crucifixion is one of the most exquisitely finished of Durer's engravings. It is a small round print, measuring only one inch five lines in diameter, but into this small circle Durer has intro duced six other figures besides the central one of Christ on the cross, and all represented with a clearness and individuality of ex pression that it is impossible to conceive without having seen a good impression of the plate. Such impressions are, unfortunately, extremely rare, and only fall as prizes occasionally to rich collectors : perhaps, as this is the case, it is lucky for poor students that there are several very beautiful copies of this print ; one or two indeed so exact, that even the best judges have great difficulty in distinguishing them from the original. It has been thought that the Little Crucifixion was originally intended for an ornament on the pommel of the sword of the Emperor Maximilian, or, some critics say, for an ornament SAINT JKROMK. ST. JEROME IN HIS CHAMBER. 189 upon his hat, for it was not unusual in that age to wear portraits of Christ, the Virgin, or the patron saint, on some part of the dress.1 _^. The year/^A/j/ys as distinguished in Durer's history for the pro duction of copper-plates as the year 151 1 for woodcuts. The two great prints of this year— the St. Jeromeon., his Chamber and the Melencolia— form, with the_J£night, Death, and Devil of the -£i_3£Ed.nJSJZ£!l_j JilS... en._lurmg- JSP1? 9rpwn_joL.Diirer's art. In these three prints he has put forth all the powers of his mind and all the skilfulrtess of his hand. Nothing in engraving, that I know of, has ever surpassed the perfect workmanship of the St. Jerome, or the intellectual power, conjoined with perfect workmanship, of the other two. The St. Jerome, in its accurate detail and minute finish, has been compared by Kugler to the works of Gerard Dow; only the German master did not, like the wearying Dutch one, design the picture merely for the sake of finishing it, but added the careful finish because he took pleasure in the design and wished to express his thoughts in as perfect language as he could find. Thus, although the details in the St. Jerome are executed with as much patient elaboration as any Dutch artist ever bestowed upon them, they are not the first things that force themselves upon our notice. The erudite Father of the Church, with his great Cardinal's hat hung up on the wall just over his head, sits at a bare oak table, on which the light falls in dazzling whiteness, writing at a desk. He is a grand and powerful old man, and the intense white glory at the back of his head forms a fitting background for its aged beauty ; an inkstand stands beside him, and a crucifix at the other end of the table. The room in whichjifi— -s~sitting_ is by AQ means the cell of an ascetic, but a pleasant, cheerful apartment; although it is probably a part of some monastery. Two large arched windows occtTp^Tone side of it, through which the sun streams brightly, throwing 1 In the Stadel Museum at Frankfort, there is an impression of this Little Crucifixion, underneath which there is an inscription by a certain Daniel Specklin who lived in the sixteenth century, stating that this Crucifixion was engraved on a gold plate for the sword of Maximilian, and that the writer had himself seen this sword at Innspruck, but that afterwards it had been taken to Vienna. This seems to be conclusive testimony. I90 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. the pattern of the little round panes of glass in a sort of diaper on the sides of the deep recesses in which the windows are set. A skull lies on one of the window-sills, but the light falls so full upon it that even the emblem of mortality has not the same ghastly effect that it has when it peers forth at us from some dim and unexpected corner. Eyerything_Jn_Jt___L__^print, indeed, breathes of repose^_and-4i£ac£,: the huge pumpkin that hangs from one of the oaken beams of the ceiling tells of the agricultural industry of the monks of the convent; the fat, dozing lion and fast-asleep watch-dog that lie in the foreground seem to speak of danger past, but they point also to the perfect security and rest of the present time. The Jearned Father at the present moment is neither beset with temptations from within^ nor with enemies TroTn™ without A "his" CardinaPs hat is laid lisideT and with~TF all the religious controversies in which he has fought so fiercely, and he is now peacefully at work upon that translation of the Holy Scriptures which we know as the Vulgate. A long wooden bench, with cushions lying here and there upon it, extends the whole length of the room beneath the window-sills ; a shelf against the wall holds a candlestick, bottles, and other domestic utensils, whilst in a leather strap fastened to the wall behind the saint are stuck his loose papers, letters, and a large pair of scissors ; a sprinkling- brush and a rosary complete the wall furniture of that side of the chamber, but in a little niche in the dark wall between the two windows stands a small jar with a stick placed upright in it — the holy-water pot and sprinkling-brush probably. The jar, it must be admitted, has somewhat the appearance of a pot of blacking, but the quaint wooden shoes of the saint, that lie beneath one of the benches, do not give one the idea of ever having been subjected to the modern method of producing polish. Several massive tomes with clasps lie on the bench beneath the window, and testify to the deep studies of the Father of the Church. So much for the subject of this print, which one cannot help imagining was conceived by Diirer in a more cheerful frame of mind than that in which he conceived the "Melencolia" and the "Knight, Death, and Devil." With regard to the execution of the St. Jerome, no terms seem too extravagant in its praise. It is a perfect marvel of beauty; and when looking at it as I am now doing, with the sunlight full upon it, I can scarcely .realize that it is merely the MELENCOLIA. 191 production of the graver, so life-like and real does the whole scene become to me. The broad flood of light that pours down on to the table and on to the floor beneath in large white patches, that illumines every grain of the wood of the oaken beams of the ceiling, that washes the left side of the huge pumpkin and strikes the hour glass and the crown of the saint's hat, whilst it leaves the saint himself half light, half shade (only the saint-shine behind his head, which is not dependent on earthly light, extends equally to the dark side of his body), — all this is as bright as the same rich sunlight which is now pouring in to my little study, and transfiguring every object by the glory it sheds around. Nor is the shade of St. Jerome's chamber less faithfully expressed than the light. Look at the wall between the windows and the floor beneath the benches. They are a perfect miracle of delicate .cross-hatching, and the great lion in front, whatever may be thought of him from a zoological point of view, is in point of execution most admirable, every hair of his coat catching or shading light. A tablet with Diirer's monogram and the date lies on the floor, in half light, just behind the lion's tail. And now, what can I say of the "Melencolia" that will in any way suffice to convey a notion of the strange fascinating power that this print exercises over the mind ? We gaze at that mystic woman until our thoughts lose themselves in the same dark abyss into which hers are plunged. " Heaven opens inward, chasms yawn, Vast images in glimmering dawn Half shown are broken, and withdrawn," — and we become quite giddy with the whirl of great but indistinct ideas that the subject presents to us. It has usually been thought that Diirer meant by this print to typify the insufficiency of human knowledge to attain heavenly "wisdom, or to^enetl.^Ei£3IKi^^ he might have had some such idea in his mind at the time when it conceived that dark-winged woman. Perhaps his. own soul's wings had beaten in vain against the impassable wall that bounds our mental horizon, before he drew those wings that spring from her powerful shoulders, and seem a mere mockery in the cramped position in which she is placed. i92 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. Burton in his "Anatomy of Melancholy" tells us " why the Muses are melancholy," and defirues. " Love of Learning or over-much study'' as one of thp causes of it. This would seem to have been something 6T Durer's idea also. His .." Melencolia-" ... is not the "Pensive nun, devout and pure, sober, stedfast, and demure," of Milton's imagination, but rather the " glorious deTilASJrgein heart and brain," of Tennyson's. The old Eve-craving for the forbidden fruit of knowIe3ge is strong in her breast, and, as may be inferred from the objects by which she is surrounded, she has sought it both by legitimate and unhallowed channels. Scientific instruments of all kinds lie scattered about ; she holds a pair of compasses in her hand; a sphere rolls on the ground before her ; a plane, a saw, and . a pair of tongs lie at her feet ; and a crucible is being heated at a little distance : bu^Jjesides these 1egitimate,,mstnjments^o about which speak ofjnagic and necromancy. There is, for instance, the astrological table of figures TeT into the wall, the numbers of which, whichever way we reckon them, always add up to the total thirty-four, probably a number of some mystic signification ; and there is also the magic crystal into the clear depths of which the woman, goddess, or devil — for it is difficult to determine which of the three she is— has apparently been long gazing, seeking to discover the hidden futurity. But none of these things have relieved the black melancholy into which her soul has fallen. She remains still "Shut up as in a crumbling tomb, girt round With blackness as a solid wall." The intensely melancholy character of the landscape in this print adds also greatly to its weird and solemn effect. TheUightJhat falls on sea and shore is neither the light of sun nor moon, _nor yet ..entirely of the P°et' A pagination; it. is. the light ol a. great, comet which burns in solit_a.ry..g1ory Jnjhe sky, betokening disaster. .and. woe. " ThVitTange rainbow that throws its arch across the waters is certainly puzzlin~g~lVom a "scientific point of^yiew, for one cannot understand how it could possibly come there, but probably Diirer was less acquainted with the laws of reflection and refraction than he was with the means of pro ducing effect; for certainly the arch of the rainbow enhances strangely the unearthly effect A>f the_ whole, ^ which is farther" increased by the MELENCOLIA. i93 bat-like creature that flies across the sky holding the scroll with MELENCOLIA I. written upon it. What the I. on this scroll refers to no one has been able to discover, but it is surmised that probably Diirer intended to design the Four Temperaments, as they were called, a common subject of Art in his day, but that he never accomplished more than this representation of Melancholy. But all interpretations of this wonderful print, and all the hypo theses that have been framed respecting it, fall to the ground when we once attentively study it, or yield ourselves to its attracting power. We are then sure to find something that contradicts all the ingenious theories we had previously formed respecting its meaning, and remain as much in the dark as ever. About no picture of Durer's, perhaps, not even excepting "The Knight, Death, and Devil," is there such a diversity of opinion as about this. Some people, of course, — common sensible people, — see in it only a strange, ugly woman in what they term " a brown study," with a number of " queer " things lying around her, and a little imp seated by her side on a grindstone ; others make it the text of a sermon on the beauty of Italian art, and mourning over Diirer's unfortunate tendency to the fantastic, ending by saying, with a sigh, " What might he not have made of this subject had he treated it as the great painters of Italy would have done ; " whilst others look into those far-seeing eyes of Melencolia until they them selves become affected by the madness, melancholy, or as the Germans style it, Weltschmerz, to which she is the prey. As Ruskin says of the print of " The Knight, Death, and Devil," we probably feel the " Melencolia " to be a greater thought in the dark engraving than if Diirer had perfectly painted this subject. Two of his finest Virgin subjects (Marien-bilder), namely, The Virgin as Queen of Heaven (Heller, 505), standing on the Crescent-moon, and The Virgin AS Earthly Mother, seated against a wall (Heller, 610), belong likewise to the year 15 14 The first is one of the most charming of Durer's conceptions of the subject There is quite a Raphaelesque grace and beauty about the Virgin ; and although the Child is a real German baby, and not " Humanity in infancy," as Coleridge says Raphael's Divine Infants are, it is nevertheless a very perfect specimen of babyhood; indeed, both the Virgin and Child are treated here much more ideally than is usual with Diirer. C C ,94 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. In the Virgin by the Wall (Heller, 610), the Virgin has more of the character of the good German housewife and mother. She sits on a stone against a rough wall, nursing the Child on her lap. A bunch of keys and a purse hang from her girdle ; hence this print is designated by some the Virgin with the Purse. Considering that Diirer executed seventeen .copper-engraved Marien-bilder (i.e. Holy Families and Virgins) besides the separate woodcuts, the Life of the Virgin series, and his paintings of the Virgin and Child, it is not to be wondered at that it is sometimes very difficult to distinguish them. Some trifling accessory therefore, such as is usually used in denoting Raphael's Madonnas, is likewise made to serve for distinguish ing Durer's. Thus we have the Virgin with the Pear, the Virgin with the Butterfly, and the Virgin (a strange association) with the Keys and Purse. St. Paul (Heller, 686), 15 14, and St. Thomas (Heller, 667), 1 5 14. — These two small but well-executed engravings belong to a series of five apostles, of which the other three were not engraved until some time after the date of these, namely — St. Bartholomew and St. Simon in 1523, and St. Philip in 1526. A Dancing Boor and his Wife, a ludicrous, 'uncouth couple of merry-makers (Heller, 912), and the Bagpipe Player (Heller, 895), subjects evidently sketched from nature, complete the engraved works dated 15 14. Another large and beautiful engraving, which, although it is un dated, there is every reason to suppose belongs to the same period as those before mentioned, is THE St. EUSTACHIUS, or as it is some times called, The St. Hubertus, for the same anecdote that Diirer has here illustrated is told of both saints ; the latter being, indeed, but the Northern representative of the former. Diirer himself, however, seems always to have called the print " St Eustachius " (he mentions it repeatedly in his Journal), and that is therefore undoubtedly the most correct title for it ; although it is perhaps difficult to imagine a hero who served under the Emperor Trajan, and who was martyred by being burnt in a red-hot iron bull, appearing in the hunting costume of Germany of the sixteenth century. The legend of St. Eustachius relates that one day (according to some accounts one Good Friday) when the saint — who was a sinner then, it must be understood — was out hunting in a wood, a stag with \ $_''¦- - >A-< 1 m AA ' ':-. . Mil'. CONVICRSIU.'J OF R'r. I'.I'S I ACIIIl! ST. EUSTACHIUS. 195 the image of the crucified Christ between his horns suddenly appeared before him, and the Crucified One spoke, and reproached St Eustachius for pursuing his favourite pastime of hunting when he ought to have been engaged in Christian duties.- Whereupon the bold huntsman fell on his knees, and became from that time forth a zealous Christian, receiving at last the crown of martyrdom. This legend Diirer has represented in his engraving with reverential piety. The figure of the huntsman, who kneels to the left of the plate, and gazes up with intense faith and devotion at the miraculous appear ance of the crucifix set in the stag's forehead, is extremely pathetic. He belongs to the noblest type of the old German character, earnest, strong, and God-fearing, with a slight tinge of mysticism withal in his nature, which renders him peculiarly susceptible to the influence of such an apparition as that which now appears to him. His horse, which he has fastened to a tree, is of somewhat the same type of character for an animal as his master for a man. Although he does not perceive the crucifix-bearing stag, he has a thoughtful look in his eyes, as if he knew that something more than usual was taking place. Every smallest detail, every strap of the trappings upon his neck and back, is finished with the most perfect accuracy, and the horse itself is excellently drawn. The five hounds also that sit and stand about in the foreground are marvels of delicate finish, and, like the little pigs in the foreground of " The Prodigal Son," they give a quaint touch of every-day life to the solemn scene. This engraving has, from the earliest times, been reckoned one of Durer's most beautiful works. It is so, perhaps ; but I do not consider it so characteristic of the mind of the artist as many others I have men tioned, certainly not as much as " The Knight, Death, and Devil," and the " Melencolia." It will be said that this is because he here depicts a legend of the Catholic Church, whereas in the other two the subject, as well as the expression of it, was a creation of his own; but this is not all. Nowhere is Durer's individual thought more clearly shown than in his treatment of the often-represented parable of the Prodigal Son. There we have his direct thought on the subject, expressed in a manner that no one who has any acquaintance with his art could mistake as being his personally, and not that of any Church or Creed whatever; but here in the "St. Eustachius" we have the C C 2 ,96 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER.. orthodox spirit and teaching of the Middle Ages, expressed, it is true, in a Diireresque manner, but without the deep-indented and peculiar stamp of his original thought being set upon it. The art-loving Emperor Rudolph, who set a great value on Durer's works, had the original plate of "St. Eustachius," which somehow came into his possession, gilded. It is still, I believe, in existence, but in private hands. The saint, according to some authorities, is a portrait of the Emperor Maximilian, and according to others a portrait of a member of the Rieter family.1 It has likewise been affirmed that Durer painted this subject, but I cannot say with what truth. No such picture is recorded in any of the catalogues of his works. Heller relates an anecdote about it certainly, but the story, if true, would apply as well to the engraving as to the supposed painting to which it is made to refer. He says that Pirkheimer, visiting Diirer one day, saw this picture in his studio, and pointed out to him a fault in it, namely, that one of the stirrups was longer than the other; a fault which the artist immediately rectified by hiding the offending stirrup in the shade of a thick branch of oak. Heller likewise quotes some stupid verses written about this utterly insignificant criticism of Pirkheimer's. The print usually known as The Great Fortune (Heller, 839), but thought by some writers to be the one mentioned by Diirer under the title of The Nemesis, is another important but undated engraving that most critics consider was executed about this time. A large naked, winged woman, whose ugliness is perfectly repulsive, stands on a globe in the middle of the plate, holding in one hand a rich chalice, and in the other a bridle. The landscape on the earth beneath this strange figure represents a mountainous country, with a village surrounded by two rivers, lying at the foot of the mountains. This village is affirmed by Sandrart to be the village of Eytas, in Hungary, the birthplace of Durer's father ; but it is extremely unlikely that Diirer ever travelled into Hungary and saw the ancestral home ; and, moreover, the landscape of this engraving is evidently of a purely imaginary character, and is not sketched from any real place in Hungary, or elsewhere. It is strange that the engraving that Diirer mentions several times in his Journal by the title of " The Nemesis " has never been satis- 1 A patrician family in Nurnberg, connected by marriage with Pirkheimer. THE NEMESIS. 197 factorily determined upon. Most of the others are easy enough to identify : the " Eustachius," the " St. Jerome," the " Melencolia," &c, to which he frequently alludes, either as having made presents of them to his friends, or having sold them for such or such a price, are all well known ; but " The Nemesis," which he enumerates in several cases with the others, has always remained a mystery. The reasons, however, for thinking it " The Great Fortune," are certainly very strong. In the first place, it must be one of the large-sized prints (halb-bogen), for it is always included with these, and not with the smaller ones (viertel-bogen), and no other large engraving expresses even as well as this the notion of a Nemesis ; and, secondly, the ancients were accustomed to symbolize this strange heathen divinity under the form of a female figure with a band round her head and a bridle in her hand, and in this instance it is quite possible that Diirer may have followed ancient art. Still, these arguments, which were first set forth in Naumann's " Archiv," 1856, and have since been adopted by most writers on the subject, do not seem to me quite conclusive ; for Diirer, as we know, was not wont to adopt the sym bolism of ancient art, and anything less classic than this engraving, taken as a whole, can scarcely be conceived. The chalice also that the winged woman holds in one hand is a Christian and not a Pagan symbol ; and although Diirer may have " introduced it as a Christian emblem of reconciliation," it seems to argue a strange confusion of ideas if he attempted to symbolize in one figure the Christian doc trine of reconciliation and the Pagan one of Nemesis. But, as I have said, there is no other large engraving that can be considered to be the Nemesis with such probability as this, and therefore, until the riddle is solved in some other way, it is convenient to call this print by that name ; for the title of " The Great Fortune " gene rally bestowed upon it is thoroughly absurd, the figure having none of the attributes of the blind goddess. The Coat of Arms with the Cock (Heller, 1020). — This is one of the finest subjects of the kind that Diirer ever engraved. It is supposed to have some allegorical signification, and not to be the arms of any particular person or family. He often, as we know, drew armorial bearings for his friends, and some of these are admirably executed as well in woodcut as in engraving ; but this and the " Coat of Arms with the Death's Head," seem more like the creations of 198 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. his own fancy than the expression of any heraldic dignity. The Lion and the Cock in this plate are supposed to signify Faith and Vigilance. The Virgin on the Half Moon, with Crown and Sceptre (Heller, 526), 15 16; The Virgin crowned by Two Angels (Heller, 547), 1 5 18, a most charming little " Marien-bild ; " THE VIRGIN SUCK LING the Child (Heller, 576), 15 19; The Virgin crowned by One Angel (Heller, 537), 1520; The Virgin with the Child in Swaddling Clothes (Heller, 585), 1520, are all pleasing and well- executed Virgin subjects, done principally no doubt for the sake of the profit that such works as these were sure to yield, whilst the success of the larger and more original subjects was always more or less uncertain. St. Anthony (Heller, 695), 15 19. — This exquisitely finished little engraving represents the hermit saint seated on a small hill just outside a busy town, but the holy recluse is entirely withdrawn from the town's interests and commotion ; with his cowl drawn half over his face, he sits there lost in meditation ; he sees not the cheerful external nature that surrounds him, but is wholly absorbed in his own thoughts, or in his study of the book that lies open on his knees, as he sits with them bent up on the grass. A tall pole with a crucifix at the top and a bell attached to it, reminds passers-by of the holy vocation of the saint. Perhaps there is a little slit somewhere in the pole, through which the pious may drop their alms. But the most wonderful thing in this print is the group of quaint mediseval buildings that forms the town and rises behind the figure of the saint. The town in question is very like what Nurnberg must have been in Durer's day. There is the grey old castle with its towers rising above the rest in feudal dignity. There are the innumerable gable roofs of the houses, each one having its own distinct individuality; there is the broad moat with its embattlemented wall, and queer old houses dipping down into the water; and there are the protecting towers which, although not so numerous as in Nurnberg, are yet enough to give a most varied aspect to the picturesque scene. Every little detail is finished with the utmost delicacy, indeed the careful execution of this plate cannot be too highly praised : there are, however, several very excellent copies of it; one of these, indeed, is so exact, that it can only be known from the original by a COAT of arms. EARLY IMPRESSIONS OF THE PLATES. 199 little chimney-pot about the tenth of an inch in height being missing in the copy, and another chimney-pot of about the same size being placed slightly to the left, instead of exactly in the middle of a roof, as in the original. It is such little marks as these that collectors diligently study, and it makes all the difference in their estimation whether the chimney is to the left, or whether the back of Eve is shaded or not. Of course this is of the highest importance when, as in the case of the chimney-pot in question, it enables us to distinguish a copy from an original, but often an engraving gets prized and a fabulous value set upon it because of some trifling peculiarity which proves it to be an early impression, whereas in reality it is not so good as one in the later and probably more finished state of the plate. Very early impressions of Durer's engravings are seldom now to be met with ; they are mostly in public collections, or in the posses sion of rich private collectors ; but 'when, by any chance, any such are sold, they fetch sums that would certainly astonish Diirer if he could know of them,1 but which still are far below those given for the works of several other engravers ; nothing like, for instance, the enor mous amounts often given for early impressions of Rembrandt's etchings. Although it is perhaps an expensive enjoyment for a poor student, it is by no means necessary to be a millionaire to become a collector of Durer's works. It is the knowledge more than the money that is wanting to most people, and excellent impressions of most of his prints may be obtained at a very moderate price with a little trouble bestowed on the search for them. One of the most accurate means of determining the date of an engraving is the examination of the watermark of the paper on which it is printed. It may not perhaps be uninteresting to the reader to learn a few of the watermarks on Durer's works that are most sought after by connoisseurs, for such marks often decide whether a print is worth pounds or shillings. Durer, we find, at three successive 1 A fine impression of the "Adam and Eve" which Durer sold for four stiver, fourpence (worth eighteenpence of our present money), fetched at the sale of the collection of Mr. Julian Marshall, in 1864, V-l. lev. The complete set ofthe "Passion," in copper, was sold at the same sale for 60/. The " St. Eustace" was sold at the Posonyi sale in 1867 for 21/., and the "St. Jerome" for 49* °f course these were very fine and rare impressions. Good impressions even of the most celebrated prints may often be obtained at sales for a very small sum. 2oo LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. periods of his artistic career, made use of paper of three different makes : thus the watermark on the paper of a print frequently enables us to decide not only the date of the impression, but likewise whether the print was an early or late work of the artist. Many of the engravings that were supposed by Bartsch and others to belong to one period, have been transferred to another by the study of their watermarks. A German art-critic 1 has lately treated this subject in an almost exhaustive manner, and to his valuable book I must refer the reader for all special information on the subject. I can only enumerate here a few of the marks that have most value set upon them by collectors. The great Bull's Head (Ochsenkopf) and the Gothic % are the principal watermarks of the first period, which extends until the journey to Venice. " The Bull's Head is a right good head, there is no doubt about it," said a well-known collector to me one day, in accents of proud joy at being the possessor of a good many of these " good heads." The Great Crown, the Imperial Apple, the Little Crown, the Imperial Eagle, the Anchor in a Circle, and the Wall and two Towers, belong to the second or middle period ; whilst during the last period after Durer's return from the Netherlands, we find most frequently the Little Pitcher with a large handle : sometimes, however, the arms of Niirnberg, and another coat with two Lilies and a Crown, are met with. 1 Oberbaurath B. Hausmann, "Durer's Kupferstiche, Radirungen, Holzschnitte und Zeichnungen, unter besonderer Beriicksichtigung der dazu verwandten Papiere und deren Wasserzeichen." Hannover, 1861. CHAPTER IV. PAINTINGS, DRAWINGS, AND PLASTIC WORKS. "Albrecht Diirer may be called the Shakespeare of Painting." F. von Schlegel. The Venetian painters of Durer's time were at first, as we have seen, somewhat disposed to sneer at Diirer as a painter, declaring that, although he was good in engraving, he did not know how to use colour ; but after they had seen the splendid picture that he executed whilst in Venice for the German Company, they were, he tells us, "silenced" (gestillt), for they were forced to admit to them selves, if not to others, that their German rival could paint as well as engrave. Even at the present time many who are well acquainted with Durer's woodcuts and engravings are scarcely aware that he ever painted a great picture, and would probably be inclined to endorse the opinion of the envious painters of Venice. But whoever has seen the wonderful Apostles at Munich, the Trinity at Vienna, or any one of his more remarkable portraits, will require no further proof of his great power as a painter, and will probably see no exaggeration in the verdict of Schlegel, quoted at the head of this chapter, even though they admit that no higher praise could have been found. Nevertheless it must be owned that, even amongst the paintings by Diirer which may fairly be considered genuine, many are in the hard, unlovely manner of early German art, a manner that repels most observers, and prevents them from seeing the force of character and depth of meaning underlying the hard outlines and stiff forms presented to them. From this manner Diirer, as we shall see, worked himself entirely free in his later years, but enough pictures remain, D D 2 0 2 LIFE OF A LB RE CUT D URER. painted by him in his early or Wohlgemuth manner, to give a pre text for affixing his monogram to all sorts of hideous crucifixions, distorted saints, and angular Madonnas with drapery made out of tea-boards. Such pictures abound in the churches of Germany, and probably proceeded originally from Wohlgemuth's manufactory, but Albrecht Durer assuredly had nothing to do with them, although unfortunately his fame as a painter has suffered greatly from their staring ugliness. For, even in his very earliest works, there is always some origi nality of thought, some power of expression, that distinguishes them from the crude productions of most of the other German masters of his time ; for instance, the portrait of his father, which is the earliest oil-painting by his hand that we know, has a distinct character marked on it that renders it quite unlike the usual German portraits of that period. It is as powerful as many of Holbein's, or even Rembrandt's portraits, and yet we should never think of mistaking it for a Holbein or a Rembrandt, so marked is its individuality. There are four repetitions or copies of this excellent portrait of Durer's father still in existence. One is now in Syon House, the seat of the Duke of Northumberland. It represents an old, but not a decrepit man, with an earnest, almost sorrowful expression of coun tenance. The eyes look forth at you with grave, anxious thought, and the mouth is slightly compressed ; altogether giving a very good idea of the character that Diirer has himself drawn for us of his God-fearing father. With regard to the technical qualities of this painting, they prove that Diirer had already acquired a considerable mastery over his brushes and palette. The modelling is good, and the colouring very effective, the prevailing tone being a deep rich brown ; it reminds me indeed, in its colouring and general effect, more of early Vene tian portraits, than of those by Flemish or German masters. Possibly Diirer might have already seen a work by Giovanni Bellini, whom as we know he considered at a later date " the best master of them all." Above the Syon House portrait there is the following inscription: — 1497 Albrecht Thvrer der Elter vnd alt 70 Jor. It was in the collection of the Earl of Arundel when it was engraved by Hollar. PORTRAITS OF HIS FATHER. 203 But the earliest, and according to good judges the best replica of this picture occurs at Florence, where it is dated 1490, which, if correct,1 would prove it to have been painted before Durer's Wander- jahre, perhaps as a reminiscence of home, to take with him on his journey. Strange to say, it appears probable that the Earl of Arundel, who possessed the portrait which Hollar engraved, had this portrait likewise under his care for some time, for we know that the Rath of Nurnberg presented our Charles I. with two portraits by Diirer : one, the portrait of himself, mentioned at page 61 ; and the other, it is supposed, this painting of his father, and entrusted them to the Earl of Arundel to take to England. We might have imagined that by some means or other the art-loving Eari had managed to keep the portrait in question in his own possession, and that this was the one that Hollar engraved, but that in the old inventory of the King's pictures already quoted, we find mention, not only of Diirer's portrait of himself, but also of one of his father.2 According to Dr. Waagen, the portrait at Florence is more yellow in the flesh tones than that in Syon House, and differs also in having a green background, but in other respects the two exactly resemble each other. Again we find this same portrait in the Pinakothek at Munich, but this example is decidedly inferior to either of the others, and is evidently a copy. It bears this inscription : — 1497. Das malt ich nach meines Vatters gestalt Da Er war sibenzich Jar alt. (This I painted from my father when he was seventy years old.) And, lastly, it turns up at the Stadel Museum at Frankfort, where again it claims to be the original from which all the others were copied, and also the one that Hollar engraved. Like the Syon House example, the words ALBRECHT TliVRER 1 Some critics read the date 1498. " M. Otto Mundler writes to me in high terms of praise of the Uffizj example of Albrecht Diirer der altere. He says that for " beauty and delicacy of modelling this portrait has scarcely been surpassed afterwards by the master ; perhaps not equalled." He does not, however, allow that the Uffizj portrait of Diirer himself is genuine ) but holds that the original is at Madrid. It seems, however, reasonable to suppose that, if one portrait is original, the other is also, for they both appear to have been derived at the same time from the same source. D D 2 204 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. DER Elter VND ALT 70 JOR are written above this portrait, but, instead of 1490 or 1497, it is dated 1494. This seems to me to prove that it could not have been the one that Hollar engraved, for in his engraving the date is certainly 1497 ; but Passavant, the learned editor of the Stadel Museum Catalogue, is of a different opinion, and thinks that Hollar probably mistook the date on the picture, and that it was really the Frankfort example, and not the Syon House one, that was the original of his fine engraving. This opinion he founds on the circumstance that in 1664 Hollar dedicated the plate to the Frankfort patrician, Maximilian zum Jungen, who was then the possessor of the Frankfort example of this oft-repeated painting. Of the three out of the four copies of this picture that I have myself seen, I certainly prefer the Syon House example, but then my judgment may be influenced by the same patriotic sentiment that, I imagine, lies at the bottom of M. Passavant's decision in the matter. Besides the two controverted portraits in the gallery at Florence, there is also another picture there of Durer's early time that is very carefully and well painted. It is an Adoration of the Kings, dated 1504, and was, it is supposed, originally painted for the Elector Frederick the Wise of Saxony, for whom, as we shall see, Diirer sub sequently executed another great work ; it was afterwards presented by the Elector Christian II. to the Emperor Rudolph, and finally travelled to Florence. A picture of the Apostles St. Philip and St. James, 15 16, is likewise in the Uffizj Gallery, which can boast of more works by Durer than any other collection out of Germany. Several other unimportant paintings may be referred, with those I have quoted, to the period before Durer's visit to Venice ; but we find no really great painting by his hand until the year 1506, when, during his residence in Venice, he executed for the guild of German Merchants (Tedeschi) in that city the celebrated picture of the Feast of the Rose-garlands, which is now reckoned one of his finest works. I say " now reckoned," for it is only of late years that this picture has been known to be still in existence. It was always supposed that the picture Durer painted in Venice represented the martyrdom of St. Bartholomew ; indeed many writers have distinctly stated that such was its subject, though without giving any shadow of proof of their assertion; but a painting by Durer, dated 1506, has THE FEAST OF THE ROSE-GARLANDS, 205 recently been discovered in the monastery of Strahow, near Prague, the beauty and importance of which leave but little doubt that this was really the picture that Durer painted for the Tedeschi— a picture on which, as we have seen, he worked hard during seven months of his stay in Venice (an incredibly short period for the execution of such a work), and which gave him and others who saw it the liveliest satisfaction when it was finished. He was evidently proud of this work himself. " How well we think we have done," he writes to Pirkheimer, "you with your wisdom, and I with my picture." We cannot tell much about Pirkheimer's wisdom now-a-days, but we are still fortunately able to judge of Durer's picture. It is indeed a noble work of art, and even now, in its decay and restoration, its beauty of colour is said to be still apparent. Un fortunately I have never seen the original, so cannot speak from personal observation of its execution ; but in respect to its concep tion, composition, and solemn beauty of expression — qualities of which one can judge from the engraving — no picture that I know of by Diirer is equal to it. The Virgin sits in the midst, under a light canopy supported by two child-angels ; two other delicious little cherubs hold up a spherical crown with stars on it over her head ; she holds the Child, who has almost the holy grace of one of Raphael's infant Christs, on her knee, supporting Him with one hand, whilst with the other she places a crown of roses on the head of the Emperor Maximilian, who kneels before her to receive it. A Pope on the other side receives the same honour from the Child, who stretches forth both His little hands to place the garland on his shaven head. St. Dominic, the founder of the Feast of the Rose-garlands, stands to the right of the Virgin with a blooming lily-branch in his hand, and likewise places a crown on the head of one of the monks of his order. All the other rose- crowns destined for the heads of the men and women who kneel on either side are brought by little boy-angels, who seem delighted with their coronation employment : some of the rose-garlands are being stuck on the top of the soft cloth caps worn at that period. It is supposed that most of the figures that Diirer has introduced in this worshipping multitude are portraits ; that of Christopher Fugger, of the great Augsburg Fugger family, who was at that time at the head of the German guild in Venice, being amongst the number. 2o6 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. The figure at the right-hand corner of the picture with the soft cap and curling-hair is frequently introduced in Durer's works. It is most likely a portrait of one of his friends. But the portraits that have most interest for us are those of Durer himself and Pirkheimer, who stand against the trunk of a tree, apart from the festal scene, and apparently unconscious of it. Durer holds a tablet on which is inscribed, " EXEGIT QUINQUE MESTRI spatio Albertus DOrer Germanus M.D.VI." and his monogram. A tender landscape background, with water, hill, and castle, completes the charm of this delightful work. The Emperor Rudolph II. purchased the original painting from the church in Venice where it was first set up, for a large sum of money, and it is said that he esteemed it so highly that he would not trust it to the ordinary means of conveyance, but had it carried on men's shoulders all the way from Venice to Prague. At the sale of his pictures by the Emperor Joseph II. in 1782, it became the property of the monastery of Strahow, where it remained buried in oblivion until within the last twenty years, when it was reinstated in its former fame, although, alas ! in its present injured and faded condition, only the dim shadow of its former beauty endures.1 Almost immediately after his return from Venice, Diirer executed two large single figures of Adam and Eve, the originals of which have also only lately been brought into notice by Passavant, who dis covered them in the Royal Gallery at Madrid.2 These figures, which are painted on wood panels, are life-size, like the great figures of the Apostles, to which indeed they might form a companion pair. They are reported by Passavant to be well designed and noble in outline. The head of Eve — who is represented at the moment of her fall in the act of receiving the apple from the serpent — has more beauty than Diirer usually expressed. Adam already holds a branch of the fatal tree with an apple upon it in his hand, but he turns his head anxiously towards Eve, as if still in doubt. " The tender carnation in Eve is reddish in the middle tints, white in the lights, and grey verging into brown in the shades. Adam is somewhat warmer in flesh-colouring. The background is a very dark brown." 1 There is an old copy of this painting in the Museum at Lyons. * Passavant, " Christliche kunst in Spanien ; " also an article in the " Kunstblatt " for 1853, page 231, THE ADAM AND EVE. 207 On the Eve panel is inscribed : " ALBERTUS DuRER Almanus FACIEBAT POST VlRGINIS PARTUM, 1507," and monogram. The Adam and Eve was formerly supposed to have been the painting that Diirer presented as a last memorial to his native town ; but it has been clearly shown that such was not the case, but that it was' the figures of the Four Apostles that he gave to the Rath. The Rath, however, must likewise have been at one time in possession of the Adam and Eve, for we find that, with its usual obliging com pliance to the wishes of powerful princes, it gave up this painting of Durer's to the Emperor Rudolph II. , who was a great admirer of Durer's works, and had already obtained the great painting of the Trinity in a similar manner. Rudolph, it is said, had the painting secretly carried away in the night to Prague (which looks as if there was something underhand in the transaction), and a copy set up in its stead in the Rathhaus at Nurnberg. The Niirnbergers do not seem to have found out the deceit ; and when the French entered the town in 1 796, they carried off the Adam and Eve of the Rathhaus to Paris as a valuable art- prize. Even this was not the end of its adventures ; for Napoleon, finding out possibly that his prize was no prize after all, generously presented it to the then French town of Mainz, where it is still shown as an original painting by Diirer, although it is a sad libel on his name.1 Meanwhile the true Diirer Adam and Eve travelled from Prague to Vienna, and from thence into Spain, where, as I have said, it has been recently found, and brought again into notice by Passavant. Diirer evidently bestowed great thought and care on these figures. There are no less than three sketches for the Eve in the British Museum, and several others exist in different collections. It would seem, indeed, in this work, painted immediately after his return from Venice, as if he had desired to test his powers in those very depart ments of art in which the Italian masters were most triumphant, and to enter into rivalry with them, even in the representation of the nude human form ; but either, as Vasari suggests, from his German models having "such ill-shaped figures," or from some other cause, Durer's drawings from the nude are generally disagreeably anatomical, and entirely lack the grace and repose of the great Italian masters. 1 There is another repetition of the Adam and Eve in the Palazzo Pitti at Florence. 208 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. His outlines are too hard and draughtsmanlike to give any true idea of the mobile human form. It is so with the Eve, judging at least from the copies, of which there are several besides the original at Mainz ; but the beauty of our first parents was greatly admired when Durer first represented it, and Kaspar Velius, a poet of the day, wrote a Latin distich upon it, in which he says — " Angelus hos cernens miratus dixit; ab horto Non ita formosos vos ego depuleram." The next picture that Durer painted, after the Adam and Eve, has for its subject the "Martyrdom of the Ten Thousand Saints." It was a commission from Frederick of Saxony, for whom, as before mentioned, Diirer had already painted an Adoration. Frederick the Wise was the only one of the reigning princes of Germany who appears to have ever given Diirer a commission, and this was the greater compliment to the Nurnberg artist in that the Elector had in his constant service no less a painter than Lucas Cranach, who was besides his faithful and attached friend. But Frederick had seen, and had liked, the terrible woodcut of the Martyrdom of the Ten Thousand (Heller, 1881), and he desired to have the subject repeated for him in a painting. This Diirer did with perhaps as much taste as it was possible to put into such a subject when treated in a realistic manner, but nothing could prevent the brutal torment and massacre of a host of Christian martyrs from yielding a very painful, not to say unpleasant, picture. Those, however, who have seen the fearful and disgusting representations of this and similar scenes common in early German art will know how to appreciate even the reticence that Durer has shown. You can look at his picture without turning sick, which is more than can be said of many of the revolting martyr pictures scattered through the collections and museums of Germany. The composition deviates in some particulars from the woodcut — for instance, the king in the woodcut is standing, in the picture he is on horseback — but the thought in each work is the same, and the same impression is produced on the spectator. The colouring of the painting is brilliant and clear, and the execution admirable, but there is a certain want of unity in it that destroys the harmony of the com position ; one group of sufferers appears unconscious of the other, and the parts seem to have been separately composed and then tacked CORRESPONDENCE WITH J A COB HELLER. 209 together, rather than conceived as one great whole. Durer and Pirk heimer stand together in the middle of the picture. Durer holds a small flag in his hand, on which is written, " Iste faciebat anno domini 1508 Albertus Durer Alemanus." In a letter to Jacob Heller he mentions that the sum he received for this painting (280 gulden) "scarcely paid expenses," for he had worked for a whole year constantly upon it, and had religiously refused to touch any other work until it was finished. The Emperor Rudolph, after Frederick's death, seems to have achieved its possession. It was at one time, at all events, in his Gallery at Prague, but at the dispersal of that collection it travelled to Vienna, and is now preserved in the Gallery of the Belvedere. Before Diirer had finished the picture of the Martyrdom for the Elector of Saxony he received a commission for another painting from a rich merchant of Frankfort named Jacob Heller. Business had probably brought Heller, some time before this, to Nurnberg, where he had met Diirer, and conceived the idea of having a large altar-piece executed by him, to set up in honour of his patron saints in the Dominican Church at Frankfort. A long correspondence ensued between him and Diirer on the subject, and Durer's letters, nine in number, are still preserved.1 Space will not admit of my translating the whole of them here, but this is the less important, as they are simply business letters, referring entirely to the terms of the commission, and the progress and completion of the painting. In the first letter, dated on St. Augustine's day (August 28) 1507, Diirer tells Heller that he has been laid up with fever for several weeks, which has hindered his work on the Elector's painting (the one above described), but he prays him to have patience, and then, as soon as he has done the work he has then in hand, he will '¦ do something for him that few others could do." He has already obtained a panel from the joiner, and given it to another workman who has coloured it white, and prepared it for painting ; and he has paid the money that Heller has given him for the joiner, for he does not think the man has overcharged for his work. In the second letter, which occurs after an interval of six months, he informs his correspondent that he shall be ready in fourteen days, 1 Printed in " Reliquien von Albrecht Diirer." E E 2 to . • LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. '¦-• with the Duke's (i.e. Elector's) picture, and that then he will begin his picture, and will paint the centre-piece (mitler blat) "diligently with his own hand." He wishes Heller could see his gracious Lord's picture (The Martyrdom of the Ten Thousand), it would certainly please him ; he cannot hope to make any profit out of it, for it has taken him nearly a year, and he is only to be paid 280 gulden for it : " but no one shall persuade me," he adds, " to work according to what I am paid " (das ich etwas verdingts machte). A noble, but scarcely a prudent sentiment, Diirer, as you will find to your cost, in dealing with keen Frankfort merchants. This letter is dated the second Sunday in Lent, March 19, 1508 ; in it he sends Heller the measurement of the painting. Letter 3 is in answer to one of Heller's, in which he has enjoined the artist to "paint his picture well," an unnecessary exhortation, in that, as Diirer tells him, he "has it in his own mind to do so," — for his own sake perhaps more than for Heller's, for, as we have already seen, Diirer cannot be persuaded to do contract work (verdingts). Probably Heller's idea of a good painting was its having plenty of paint on it, and Diirer therefore is wise in dwelling more on the expense of the colours and the number of coats of paint that he is laying on the panel, than upon the thought and care that he is bestowing on the subject. But it is evident that this picture was from the first a favourite with Diirer, and, unmindful of the stipulated reward, he threw his whole energies into it ; the number of full-sized studies that he made for it is, indeed, something remarkable,1 and shows that he attached the greatest importance to the work. The centre picture of the altar- piece, on which, as Durer assures Heller, " no one shall paint a stroke but himself," was to represent the Coronation of the Virgin, and the two wings the Martyrdom of St. James, the patron saint of the founder, and the Martyrdom of St. Catherine, the patron saint of his wife. Heller, we learn, had agreed to pay 130 florins for such ' Mr. Charles Ruland of Frankfort, to whom I owe much of my information about this picture, tells me that he has identified no less than eleven studies for the centre picture alone, and that there are known to be many others for the wings. In the British Museum there are three studies for a Coronation of the Virgin, two of them being highly finished coloured drawings. Very probably these were also designs for the Frankfort picture, for they do not appear to me to have been studies for the woodcut of the Life of the Virgin series, as Dr. Waagen supposed. CORRESPONDENCE WITH J A COB HELLER. a painting, and Diirer had unfortunately contracted to do it for \A\s amount ; now, however, when it is too late, the foolish artist, who has taken a fancy to his painting and is executing it not " as by contract " but as by love, finds out that the 130 florins Rhenish will certainly not pay him for his work, for he has to expend much upon it and to devote a great deal of time to it: but he "will honourably fulfil what he has promised," if Heller is not willing to pay him more than the money agreed upon, and will undertake that it shall be worth much more than the price paid for it ; and if Heller will give him 200 florins for it (about 1,000 florins of present German money, or 83/. 6s. 8d. of English), then he will execute it in a very superior manner. Even so he will not gain one penny profit by it, and he would not undertake another such a work for 400 florins. Heller was greatly annoyed at this proposal on the part of Diirer. He had made a bargain with his artist in the same way as he would have done with his shoemaker or his tailor, and he expected him to keep to his agreement. He wanted, it is true, to propitiate the favour of heaven, and likewise to reap a little glory on earth, by setting up a fine altar-piece in his native town, but he had no notion of paying the poor painter too liberally for the pious work ; that would not be taken into account, so he probably reckoned, either by heaven or by earth. He therefore wrote very angrily on the subject to Jacob Frey, Durer's brother-in-law, in whose house it would seem he had first met Durer, and likewise sent Diirer a letter accusing him of not having kept his word. In answer to this Durer writes (Letter 4) somewhat stiffly. He will keep to his agreement if Heller wishes it, but Heller knows that he did not promise anything in his brother-in-law's house, but only undertook to paint something such as few people could paint, and the great diligence he has bestowed on this picture caused him to send his former letter, for all artists were pleased with it, and estimated it as being not worth less than 300 florins. " But," he says, " I would not take even that money three times over to paint such another picture. I neglect my own interests and suffer loss and damage, and yet get only ingratitude from you. Know that I use the very finest colours that it is possible to obtain, and have spent twenty ducats for ultramarine only, without other costs ; but I know, when the picture is ready, you will say you have never seen such a pretty thing (hipscher E E 2 ai2 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. Ding) before, and I think to paint the middle picture from beginning to the end in about thirteen months, and will undertake no other work until it is finished." He then again refers to the great cost of the colours he employs, ultramarine alone costing ten or twelve ducats the ounce; but notwithstanding all this, he will hold to what he promised, for, so far as it is in his power, he will prevent any one from speaking ill of him. He hopes, however, when Herr Heller sees the painting, that all things will be set straight; therefore he begs him to have patience, for the days are short, &c. There was nothing for Heller to do but to take Durer's advice, and "have patience," but after waiting another few months his stock of that article was again exhausted, and he writes at the beginning of 1509 to ask what has become of his picture. Diirer replies on the 22d of March that he does not think the picture will be finished before Whitsuntide, but that he is working constantly and diligently at it. He has not been sparing in colour, for he has already consumed 24 florins' worth of paints on it, and has spent a long time over it and used his utmost diligence, so that it is evident he must lose by it, and he is only speaking the truth when he says he would not do another such a picture under 400 florins. All this, of course, is meant as a hint to Heller as to the price, but he says nothing directly about it in this letter, only telling Heller that he has had several offers for the picture if he would sell it and paint another in its stead for him, but " far be it from me to do this," he says. " I will honourably hold to what I have said, and I hold you also for an honest man, and I have no doubt that my great diligence will satisfy you." With respect to the worth and excellence of the painting, Diirer refers it to the judgment of a Frankfort painter, named Martin Hess. But Whitsuntide came and went, and still our poor Frankfort merchant did not receive his long-expected picture. He might die and leave the Virgin and his patron saints still unpropitiated, for it was not likely that they would take the "will for the deed." It was not therefore to be wondered at that he was very anxious to see his altar-piece set up safe in its place, with all Frankfort admiring it, and felt very angry with Diirer for delaying so long about it. In this extremity he wrote to Hans Imhof, who had been entrusted with the payment part of the business, expressing his great dissatisfaction, and CORRESPONDENCE WITH fACOB HELLER. 213 unwisely saying that he repented ever having given Diirer the com mission, and that if he had not done so he would not now have taken the painting. Diirer was, of course, greatly angered at this ; and at once, as he tells Heller, in Letter 6, took back the 100 florins that he had already received for the work to Hans Imhof, who had paid them to him on the part of Heller. But the Nurnberg merchant would not receive them back without the Frankfort merchant's consent.; so Diirer writes to Heller that he shall have "no repentance or damage" on his account, but that he can have his 100 florins back and be free of his bargain whenever he likes, for he, Diirer, will willingly keep the picture; for he can make at least 100 florins more out of it at any time. This was not by any means what Heller really intended, and he therefore got more polite, and told Diirer that he never had any in tention of refusing the picture, but was quite satisfied to receive it when it was ready. Diirer, however, who now has the advantage, will not let the matter drop in this way. The picture is at last ready, but he tells Heller he need not have it unless he likes. He will send it to Frankfort for him to see, and to judge whether it is not well worth the 200 florins that he now stipulates on receiving for it. If Heller thinks it is not worth that sum, he demands his picture back again, for he can sell it in Nurnberg for 300 florins, but Heller's friendship is dearer to him than any such small sum of money (solch klein geldt) ; and besides, he would rather his picture went to Frankfort than to any other place in all Germany. Heller agrees to this, and so the matter is settled, and the next letter (Letter 8) is written to say that he has delivered the painting, well packed, to Hans Imhof to be sent to Frankfort, and that Imhof has paid him the other hundred gulden for it, whereby it would seem that it did not after all go to Frankfort on approval or return. This letter is dated the 28th of August, 1509, exactly two years since Durer first wrote to say that he had got a panel from the joiner; not such a very long time, whatever Heller might think, for the execution of a work like the "Coronation of the Virgin." "It will last," he tells Heller, "fresh and clean for 500 years, for it is not done as ordinary paintings are done," but with the best colours, &c. : " there fore do not let holy water be thrown over it" (an ordinary usage in 2I4 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. consecrating an altar-piece), and "when I come to Frankfort, in one, two, or three years' time, I will give it a coating of peculiar new varnish, such as no one but myself knows how to make, and which will make it stand ioo years longer, but let nobody else varnish it, for all other varnishes are yellow and would ruin your picture." "But no one," he writes, "shall ever again persuade me to under take a painting with so much work in it. Herr Jorg Tauss offered himself to pay me 400 florins for a Virgin in a Landscape, but I declined positively, for I should become a beggar by this means. Hencefonvard, I will stick to my engraving ; and if I had done so before, I should be richer by 1,000 florins than I am at the present day!' Poor Diirer ! He feels himself very hardly used ; but if an ambitious artist will paint "what is in his mind to paint," and give his patrons double as much ultramarine and beauty as their money will pay for, he must reap the consequences. It sounds strange to us, that at the end of this letter Diirer adds a request for a Trinkgeld for his wife, but this he says he leaves to Heller's pleasure, he does not wish to tax him any further. Letter 9, the last of the series, is the amicable close of the whole business. Everybody seems contented with everything ; and after so many misunderstandings, the merchant and artist still remain good friends. Heller has received the picture, and is quite delighted with it, finding the account also very moderate. Diirer writes to say how glad he is of this, and that his labour has not been all in vain ; also, he thanks Heller on the part of his wife for the present (Verehrung) that he has sent her, and which she will wear in his remembrance ; likewise for the two gulden that he has sent his young brother for a Trinkgeld, and generally for all the honour shown him ; and as Heller has asked his advice about a frame for his picture, he sends a design for one, which he can use or not as he likes. In conclusion, he wishes his correspondent " much happy time " (viel selig Zeit), and dates the letter "on the Friday before St. Gallo" (12th of October), " 1509." It is very sad after reading of all the labour that Durer bestowed on this work, and the pride that he evidently took in it, to learn that this great painting, which would have lasted "clean and fresh for 500 years," perished in 1674 in the burning of the old palace at Munich, and this is the more grievous, in that by rights it ought never to have gone to Munich at all. THE CORONATION OF THE VIRGIN. 215 Heller, as he intended, set up his altar-piece in the Church of the Dominicans in Frankfort, where he and his wife soon after took up their last earthly abode, beneath the imposing shelter of a costly bronze monument. It is strange to think that even his grand tomb would scarcely have preserved the name of the Frankfort merchant for many generations from oblivion, whereas the picture for which he paid a poor Nurnberg artist 200 florins has handed it down to the present day. Durer's " Coronation of the Virgin " soon attracted attention, and brought crowds of people to the Dominican Church to see it, whereby, Van Mander tells us, " the monks reaped an immense advantage by means of the Trinkgeld that merchants and other travellers passing through the town used to give to see it." Both Karl van Mander and Sandrart praise this picture in the highest terms ; going into raptures especially over the sole of the foot of one of the kneeling apostles, who are watching the Virgin's ascent into heaven. This foot was esteemed a miracle of drawing and painting, and large sums of money were offered, it is said, to have it cut out of the painting; but the monks, perhaps in consideration of their Trink geld, refused all such barbarous offers. For a long time they managed to keep their beautiful and profitable altar-piece safe from all royal art-thieves, although Rudolph II. and the Elector Maximilian of Bavaria were both at one time bidding against one another for it, the former having offered as much as 10,000 florins, a large sum then, for its possession. But at last, in 161 3, it is not known by what means, Maximilian of Bavaria acquired possession of it, and carried it off to his palace at Munich, where, as I have said, it was destroyed by fire before the end of the century. A copy, as was usual in such cases, was left in its place at Frankfort, and this copy, painted by Paul Juvenal, an excellent Niirnberg painter, still hangs in the old Town Gallery.1 The Virgin, in the centre picture, is represented seated on the clouds ; Christ and the Father, who are likewise seated, hold a crown above her head, and numerous cherubim worship and rejoice around. Below, on the earth, are seen the astonished disciples, divided into two groups of six ; one disciple looks down into the empty tomb, as if to convince himself that the body has really departed, but the rest gaze upwards at the glorious sight revealed to them. In the 1 Not in the Stadel Institut as stated by Dr. von Eye. 2 1 6 LIFE OF ALBRECHT D URER. landscape which forms the background, we see Diirer himself sup porting a tablet, on which is written : — Albertv Dvrer Faciebat Post Virginis Partv 1509. The picture, on the whole, is in good condition, though some parts of the landscape have suffered from clumsy restoring. It bears the direct impress of Durer's mind, especially in the group above, and must be altogether a very faithful reproduction of the original. On the left wing, St. James is seen kneeling, with a soldier behind him, who raises his sword, about to strike the saint. On the right wing, St. Catherine, seen in profile, likewise kneels before her executioner. Below St. James is the kneeling figure of the founder, Jacob Heller ; below St. Catherine, the figure of his wife, both in an attitude of prayer. Their coats of arms are at the bottom of all. There is a strong probability that these portraits of Heller and his wife are really by Diirer himself, for they are evidently by quite another hand to the rest of the painting, and they are so beautifully executed, that one cannot ascribe them to any ordinary copyist1 Unfortunately no engraving or other reproduction of this cele brated picture has ever been made; at least I have never heard of one, and although the original is lost, and only a copy can be copied, yet many lovers of Durer's works would doubtless be glad to have even this second-hand memento of a picture which Diirer says gave him " more joy and satisfaction than any other he ever undertook." Had it been possible, I would have given a photograph of it here, 1 Mr. Charles Ruland, after a very close examination of this picture, assured me that he felt almost certain of the authenticity of these two portraits. They were probably sawn off the original at the time when it was sold to Maximilian, — the Heller family naturally wishing to retain the family portraits. THE ADORATION OF THE TRINITY. 217 but it is to be feared that the picture must be engraved before it can be photographed.1 Diirer, happily, by no means kept to his resolution of attending only to his engraving and not painting another great picture. Although the year 15 11 was so rich in woodcuts that one can hardly imagine that he could have had time in it for any other work, we yet find one of his very greatest paintings with this same date. The Adoration of the Trinity was probably begun as soon as Heller's picture was finished ; and if so, this painting likewise was executed within the incredibly short space of two years. It was a commission to Diirer from a pious and benevolent coppersmith of Niirnberg named Matthaus Landauer, who, with another good burgher, Erasmus Schiltkrot, had founded in 1501 a sort of alms-house — "The House of the Twelve Brothers" — for poor old men of Nurnberg. In the chapel of this foundation, which was dedicated to the Holy Trinity, Landauer set up the great and splendid altar-piece of the Trinity, where it must have seemed like a bright revelation of heaven to the dim eyes of the twelve poor brothers, who murmured their morning and evening prayers before it. God the Father in the midst, throned on the double rainbow, holds forth, for the adoration and love of all Christendom, the image of His crucified Son ; whilst saints and martyrs already in heaven, and holy men who are following in their footsteps on earth, all join in the eternal chorus, " Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost : as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen." For Diirer intended more by this picture than a mere pictorial representation of the great Three in One. He meant it probably as an expression of the Holy Catholic Faith, which the Creed of St. Athanasius tells us is this, " That we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity." Thus we have all classes and conditions of men expressing the same mystic incom prehensible faith : to the right stand emperor, king, knight, burgher, 1 In his "Denkmale Deutsche Bildnerei und Malererei" Ernst Forster gives a lithograph from a painting of the " Coronation of the Virgin," which he believes to be by Diirer, and to resemble the Heller altar-piece closely. He cannot, however, have seen the Frankfort copy of that painting ; for the lithograph in his book differs in many important respects from this copy]; indeed the two seem to have no relation to one another. The painting from which the lithograph was taken is in the possession of Fraulein Emilie Von Linder of Munich. F _ l8 LIFE OF ALBRECHT D URER. and peasant, the latter holding a flail for his emblem ; to the left pope, bishop, cardinal, and monk, with an old man in their clerical company, whose dress betokens that he belongs to the lay com munity, although his solemn and reverent mien indicates even more than the self-renunciatory piety of the cloister. This grand old father is probably a portrait of Matthaus Landauer the founder of the " Zwolf-Bruderhaus " and the giver of the altar-piece.1 Other faces in the earthly throng of worshippers are also evidently portraits ; I seem to recognise the features of Stephen Baumgartner in those of the knight in armour who kneels behind the king to the right. But the most lovely part of this picture is the adoring group of female saints to the right hand of the Vision of the Trinity; St. Agnes in particular, who bends down with her lamb in her arms and gazes up lovingly at her Saviour, is a charming figure ; and the Virgin Mary, who leads the holy band, is full of sweet dignity. It is not perhaps without significance that she has not a more pro minent position assigned to her in this picture. She merely comes with the rest of the saints to offer her homage to her Son, a circum stance which may be an indication of the tone that Nurnberg thought was already taking in the controversy that was to come. The corresponding group of prophets, apostles, and fathers is also very beautiful ; — powerful in conception, and admirable in design. Amongst the foremost figures are St. John the Baptist, corresponding, as was usual in such subjects, with the Virgin on the other side, Moses, and David with his harp. Unfortunately an outline illustration can give no idea of the beauty of colour and glory of light that is shed over this splendid painting ; the circle of cherub heads, around the Dove of the Spirit, is of the most delicate beauty, and the angels below, who bear the instruments of the Passion, are truly beings " clad in light." The execution is careful and delicate ; the composition well balanced ; but there is a certain amount of stiffness about it that prevents it from having the exquisite grace of the Feast of Rose-garlands. A land scape below the figures, such as we see in some of the cuts of the Apocalypse, with water, hill, and tree, shows us that even the earthly worshippers are for the time transported above this sublunary sphere. 1 In the Imhof collection there was at one time a portrait of Landauer drawn in chalk by Diirer, which was probably a study for this figure. THE ADORATION OF THE TRINITY. THE VIRGINS OF THE BELVEDERE. 219 Diirer stands to the right on the firm ground alone holding a tablet inscribed : — Albertvs Dvrer Norijcvs facie- bat anno-a-vir gjnjs-partv 1511. K Niirnberg and the Twelve Brothers managed to keep possession of this treasure for nearly a hundred years, but in the end it fell a prey to the art-greed of Rudolph II., who, not content with the Adam ' and Eve, which, as we have seen, he had already acquired, obtained this picture likewise as a present from a subservient Rath, who, regardless of the pious founder's bequest, robbed his chapel in which he lay buried of its greatest ornament, in order to curry favour with a king. Surely Landauer's ghost ought to have risen to prevent the sacrilege ! But whatever the loss to Niirnberg, and whatever may be our sentimental regrets, it must be admitted that the Adoration of the Trinity is far better placed in the great Gallery of the Belve dere, where it now hangs, accessible to all lovers of art, than it would be in the dark old Landauer Briiderhaus in Niirnberg, in which only its empty frame is now to be seen.1 I may as well mention here two Virgin pictures of unusual softness and refinement for Diirer, that likewise hang in the Belvedere. In the one Mary wears a blue dress with a white veil upon her head. She holds the Child, who has a cut pear in his hand, upon her arm, and looks at him with tender maternal love. In the other she is dressed in a fur mantle and sits by a table on which lies a cut lemon. The naked Child wears a string of amber beads round his neck. Kugler points out that this painting bears an evident resemblance to the works of the Flemish masters of Diirer's time, particularly to those of Quentin Massys, and that therefore it was probably executed during Durer's stay in the Netherlands. It is undated, but the Virgin with the cut pear is dated 15 12. There is likewise an earlier Virgin 1 This frame is supposed to have been designed by Diirer. He did sometimes, as we see by his last letter to Heller, design the frames for his pictures, and the ornamentation on this one is very much in his style. F F 2 220 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. and Child here, dated 1 503. Durer's Madonnas have not, it is true, the divine beauty and holy sentiment of Raphael's. They are simply German mothers, with real earthly babies in their arms ; but there are worse things for art to depict than even German mothers and their "new-born bantlings," as Coleridge calls them. The Pinakothek at Munich contains a greater number of Durer's works than any other gallery on the Continent, for most of the treasures that were acquired by Rudolph II. and the Elector Maxi milian, the two great collectors of Durer's paintings in the seventeenth century, eventually found their way here. The very first objects that strike the eye of the spectator, in entering this noble gallery, are the two magnificent panels of the Four Apostles, Durer's latest and greatest work. No words of mine would be sufficient to convey any just idea of the grandeur of thought, the depth of feeling, and the perfection of execution of these noble paintings. They were the final expression of the Philosopher's mind, the outward mani festation of the Christian's faith, and the last triumph of the Painter's hand. I stood silent when first I saw these grand Apostles, and my pen is silent now that I would describe them. There they stand, the strong upholders of the purer Christian faith and morality against a corrupted pagan world ; the teachers of the simple Christian doctrine, before it had been overlaid with all the traditions, superstitions, and idle ceremonies of the Church of Rome. Kugler calls these pictures "the first complete work of art produced by Protestantism," and very probably Diirer had his conversations with Melanchthon in his mind when he conceived them ; but it is not merely Catholicism or Protest antism, or any other " ism," that they express ; Durer's art was not here in the service of any Church whatever, but boldly declared his own individual thought in his own free language. It has been generally thought that he intended to impersonate the Four Temperaments, as they were called, in these pictures ; but I can find no foundation, except a vague tradition to that effect, for supposing that such was the case. Surely if he had been thinking of representing the choleric man, he would have chosen St. Peter, and not the learned St. Paul for that purpose ; but St. Peter, in order to carry out this idea, is here made to stand for the phlegmatic temperament, the one most opposed, it seems to me, to his historical character. THE FOUR APOSTLES. 221 St. John and St. Peter occupy one panel, St. Paul and St. Mark the other ; the enwrapping garment of St. Paul is white, that of St. John is red, both falling in simple majestic folds, with none of the harsh angularity of Durer's earlier drapery. The figures are life-size, and stand forth from their close-fitting frames with all the power and majesty of life. St. Paul is perhaps the most dignified and striking of the four ; he stands before St. Mark, whose face glows with excitement, as though he were delivering a fiery sermon to his African converts. St. John, on the other hand, is lost in mystic contemplation ; he holds the open Scriptures in his hand, but he is not reading them : it is St. Peter rather, who bends forward to look down into the same book, who is "searching the Scriptures" to find those promises of which St. John requires no confirmation. There is a distinct individuality of character in each of these four heads, and this most probably first gave rise to the notion of Diirer having meant to represent by them the four opposed temperaments ; for Neudorffer's statement to that effect requires to be received with caution, the old biographer having the habit, as we have seen, of stating his opinions as verified facts. With regard to execution these pictures are well-nigh perfect. In them Diirer put forth all his powers to their very uttermost and succeeded in reaching the noblest goal of art. Here is no mannerism, no exaggeration, no Germanism, no Italianising ; they belong to no school, to no country, but are simply nature revealed to us by means of art. Melanchthon in one of his letters to Camerarius says that he remembered Diirer once expressing to him the great modification that had taken place in his art during the latter years of his life : " In his youth," he said, "he was fond of a florid style and great combination of colours, and that in looking at his own work he was always delighted to find this diversity of colouring in any of his pictures, but afterwards in his mature years he began to look more entirely to nature, and tried to see her in her simplest form. Then he found that this simplicity was the true perfection of art ; and not attaining this, he did not care for his own works as formerly, but often sighed when he looked at his pictures and thought of his incapacity."1 This change is most remarkably apparent in these his last paintings, and it is curious to compare their perfect harmony of colour and simple grandeur of expression with some of the crude productions of his early 1 Epistola. Ph. Melanchthonis, &c. 1642. 222 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. time, before he had worked himself free from the influence of the Wohl gemuth School. The visible outlining, hard lines, and angular drapery have entirely disappeared, and instead of the restless striving of youth we have the rich maturity of a mind conscious of its own strength, and relying on its own powers. Pirkheimer assures us1 that if Diirer had lived longer he would have done " many more wonderful, strange, and artistic things;" but I think that it would have been less " wonderful and strange " things that he would have done than simple and true things, for in his later years his preference for truth over effect is strikingly manifest ; even his love of the fantastic is superseded by this love of truth, and the charm of the grotesque gives way to the charm of natural beauty. It would almost seem as if Diirer must have had some knowledge that these figures of the Apostles would be his last important work as an artist on this earth, for when he had finished them, instead of selling them to any Frankfort merchant, or endeavouring in any way to make a profit out of them, he sent them with the following letter, written in October 1526, as a present to the Rath of Niirnberg, intending these, his best paintings, to remain in his native town as an everlasting memorial of his art. " Provident, Honourable, Wise, Dear Lords, — I have been for some time past minded to present your Wisdoms with something of my unworthy (kleinwirdigen) painting as a remembrance ; but I have been obliged to give this up on account of the defects of my poor work, for I knew that I should not have been well able to maintain the same before your Wisdoms. "During this past time, however, I have painted a picture, and bestowed more diligence upon it than upon any other painting; therefore I esteem no one worthier than your Wisdoms to keep it as a remem brance ; on which account I present the same to you herewith, begging you with humble diligence to accept my little present graciously and favourably, and to be and remain my favourable and dear Lords, as I have always hitherto found you. This, with the utmost humility, I will sedulously endeavour to merit from your Wisdoms. " Your Wisdoms' humble subject, "Albrecht Durer." 1 In his Appendix lo Diirer's " Book of Human Proportions." HISTORY OF THE FOUR A POSI LES, 223 Their Wisdoms "graciously and favourably" accepted the little present, and hung the two panels of Paul and Mark, and Peter and John, in the upper room of the Rathhaus, giving the painter as an honorarium— "pro ein Ehrung"— one hundred florins, likewise twelve florins to his wife, and two florins to his man (Knecht) "pro bibalibus." For a hundred years Durer's "remembrance" was preserved in Nurnberg ; but, alas for Nurnberg's treasures ! at the beginning of the next century the Elector Maximilian visited the town, and spied out the last one remaining of the large Durer paintings. On his return to Bavaria, he at once sent his secretary and his court painter to treat for its possession, and they appear to have used both bribery and threats in order to gain their end. The Rath, to do it justice, was very reluctant this time to part with Durer's last gift, and tried all it could to get out of the matter politely, but Maximilian was too strong a neighbour to be downright refused, and at last the altern Herren had to give up the paintings, the Elector having it in his power to make the town suffer for any denial of his modest demands. In the August of 1627 the originals were delivered, with the copies that Georg Gartner had previously prepared of them, to the Elector ; the copies being sent, it would seem, in the last fond hope that he might prefer these, and send the originals, which were slightly damaged, back again : but Maximilian knew better than this, and poor Nurnberg only got back the copies (excellent ones in their way), which still hang in the upper room of the Rathhaus. The inscriptions, however, that Diirer affixed to the paintings — texts of scriptures containing warnings against false prophets, and exhortations not to depart from the Word of God — were cut off from the originals, probably on account of their anti-Catholic tendency, and are now placed under the copies. Besides the Four Apostles, there are several other paintings at Munich of great merit. His own portrait indeed (Cabinet VII.) is one of his most masterly works. I have already spoken of the wonderful sentiment of this touching likeness, so will confine myself here to its technical qualities, which, strange to say, although the picture belongs to his immature time, are of the highest excellence. The painting is unfortunately greatly over-varnished, but it has still a wonderful soft transparency, particularly in the warm flesh-tints of the face. The 2 24 LIFE OF ALBRECHT D URER. hair which falls in such rich profusion on the shoulders (see Frontispiece) is executed in his finest manner; every delicate stroke of the brush produces an effect ; the fur collar also is very carefully painted. The inscription to the left is as follows :—" ALBERTUS DURERUS NORICUS IPSUM ME PROPRHS SIC EFFINGEBAM COLORIBUS /ETATIS ANNO XXVIII." To the right is the monogram and the date 1500. This painting did not travel to Munich until 1 805. Rudolph II. and Maximilian of Bavaria could scarcely, one would think, have been aware of its existence. Allusion has already been made several times to Durer's friend Stephan Baumgartner. The Baumgartner family was one of con siderable importance in Nurnberg; and the two brothers, Lucas and Stephan, were evidently men of influence and note in their day. Diirer has represented these two brothers in the characters of St. Eustace and St. George on the side wings of an altar-piece originally set up by the family in the Church of St. Catherine in Nurnberg, but now forming Nos. 1, 2, and 3 of the first room of the Pina kothek. The middle compartment of this altar-piece represents the Nativity. Mary and Joseph kneel in adoration before the Child, who lies on the ground surrounded by five angel playmates ; the shepherds are seen in the distance with the angel appearing to them. I cannot say that I admire this middle picture ; it is cold and hard both in conception and execution ; and when one remembers the many charming woodcuts and engravings by Diirer of this subject, it makes one utterly discontented with the painting. The little angels have none of the gleeful grace of those in the Repose in Egypt, and the Infant Christ is stiff and lifeless in the extreme. The two founders on the wings, however, although outlined in the most severe manner, are grand and noble figures. Stephan, in particular, a tall, lean knight of melancholy but resolute countenance, attracted and interested me strangely. Some say he was the original of the knight in the print of the Knight, Death, and Devil, but the resemblance is not very strong ; there is more sadness and less hardness about the mouth, although he also looks a man who would not easily be daunted even by the devil. The other brother, Lucas, is a much more prosaic individual. He is not troubled with speculative doubts and sad yearnings, but is well content with his comfortable home- life in Nurnberg ; ready, if his emperor needs him, to put on his THE BAUMGARTNER ALTAR-PIECE. 225 armour and go and fight for him in his Swiss campaign as well as Stephan, but glad enough to get back safely to Nurnberg and set up an altar-piece in return for the protection of the saints. Both brothers are represented in armour of a slightly fantastic kind, with bright slashings of red appearing through their surcoats. They stand by their horses, which are somewhat stiff in drawing and wooden in appearance ; but the brothers themselves, although harshly outlined, are thoroughly life-like and individual. It would be difficult indeed to find two more excellent and characteristic portraits, whilst at the same time each figure represents admirably the saint for which it stands. Stephan is the very St. George of Spenser, tried, tempted, and sorrowful, but still doing battle with the dragon, for the sake of Una — a man " Righte faithfulle true In worde and deede." Whilst St. Eustace is the jolly and easily converted huntsman, un troubled, one feels sure, by any faithless doubts as to how the crucifix came to be between the horns of his stag. The landscape in the wing on which Stephan Baumgartner is portrayed is very much like that of the Knight, Death, and Devil ; which, taken in conjunction with the resemblance in the figures, seems to indicate that Diirer certainly ' had the one subject in his mind when he composed the other. I believe that the painting was executed long before the engraving — that it belongs in fact to Diirer's early time, before his visit to Venice ; but Kugler and Von Eye think that they are both of much the same date. There is neither date nor true monogram1 on these paintings, but no one who has seen them can have any doubt that they are by Durer, so completely do they bear the stamp of his mind.2 1 The monogram on the pillar in the centre was not, it is thought, set there by Diirer. 2 This painting likewise fell to the share of the Elector Maximilian. The letter is still preserved in which he demands rather than requests it from the Rath, although it did not properly belong to the Rath, it being, as I have said, a family foundation in the Church of St. Catherine. This, however, made little difference ; the Baumgartner family were persuaded to part with their altar-piece on consideration of a copy being put in its place, and the two brothers, who were then representatives of the family, received from Maximilian "two gold chains with gracious-pennies" (gnaden-pfening) attached in token of his goodwill, " and likewise a copy of their picture, so that they might suffer no damage I" G G 226 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. A life-size LUCRETIA, a very unpleasant naked woman, who looks as though she had a tumour in her side. The figure is said by some authorities to resemble Agnes Frey, and is praised by Kugler for its masterly modelling, " worthy of Leonardo da Vinci." 1 Christ mourned by the Holy Women, an early performance, or perhaps, as stated in the catalogue, an Atelier-bild, i.e. a painting executed chiefly by his scholars. The admirable Portrait OF Michael Wohlgemuth before mentioned ; Portrait of Oswald Krell, with the date 1499; Portrait of hjs Father, one of the four repetitions of this picture; Portrait of a Young Man, formerly called Johann Durer, 1500. Two WlNGS OF AN ALTAR- PIECE, on which are represented SS. Joachim and Joseph, two grand old men, S. Simeon and the Bishop Lazarus, with staff and book, painted on a gold ground with extreme care, and a SORROWING Mother of Christ, of very doubtful authenticity, complete the number of Durer's paintings in the Pinakothek. Although, as we have seen, Nurnberg has parted with all the great paintings and altar-pieces by Diirer which formerly adorned her churches, yet one magnificent work by his hand still remains in his native town : this is the PORTRAIT OF HIERONYMUS HOLZ- SCHUHER, which has been faithfully preserved in the Holzschuher family from Durer's time down to the present day, every successive generation having nobly refused the tempting offers made by con noisseurs and princely collectors for its possession. Well might they desire to obtain such a work ! It is the very finest of all Durer's portraits, not even excepting the Munich portrait of himself. The grand old man, who once held one of the most important posi tions in the Rath, flashes upon you as you enter his presence in all the vigour of life and all the keenness of his intellect. His eyes search you through and through, and you feel that no subterfuge or evasion will avail anything with him. The whole life of the man, indeed, is epitomized in his face, and as it is with all truly great portraits, you learn not only how he looked as he sat to the artist for his likeness, but something of his past history, his manner of thought, and the moulding influences of time on his character and opinions. It is only a great artist who can thus paint the true 1 There is a study for the head of Lucretia in the British Museum. PORTRAIT OF HIERONYMUS HOLZSCHUHER. 227 nature of his sitter unobscured by the momentary agitations of present life ; who " Poring on a face Divinely through all hindrance finds the man Behind it, and so paints him that his face, The shape and colour of a mind and life, Lives for his children ever at its best." It is thus that Diirer has painted in this instahce ; the portrait is not a mere picture, it lives, "ever at its best." In its technical execution, also, the portrait of Holzschuher is almost perfect ; the colours look as fresh as the first day they were laid on, and only the background, I was assured, had been slightly retouched. When I saw it, it was standing on an easel in a small upper room of the Holzschuher house in Nurnberg, and my first impression on seeing it was that it was a painting recently finished by some artist of the present day ; but I could think of no artist of the present day who could possibly have painted it1 A larger but far inferior work that Diirer likewise executed for the Holzschuher family has lately been restored to Nurnberg, and now hangs in the Moritz-kapelle with other paintings of the old German school. It represents the Body OF CHRIST TAKEN DOWN FROM THE Cross and mourned by the Women and His Disciples. It was originally set up in St. Sebald's Church at Nurnberg, but at the beginning of the seventeenth century the family made it a present to the well-known Martin Peller, who set up the copy in its place, which still hangs in the church. The original afterwards formed part of the Boisser^e collection, from which it travelled back to Nurnberg. It is well conceived and powerfully drawn in parts, but as a whole it is scarcely worthy of Diirer, even • in his early time ; and yet Kugler believes that it was not executed until between 15 15 and 15 18. If so, it must have been almost entirely painted by pupils, for Diirer at this date would never have painted in such a crude and stiff manner. There are many more pictures in Nurnberg signed with Durer's monogram, and pointed out as being his work, but these two that 1 By the kind courtesy of the present representative of the noble old family to whom the picture belongs, strangers are admitted without any difficulty to see it. 228 LIFE OF ALBRECHT D URER. I have mentioned are, I believe, the only genuine ones now remaining in the town ; and of these, the latter is no better than the generality of German paintings of the same date. Few galleries out of Germany can boast of possessing works by Durer; indeed there are scarcely any genuine paintings by him even in Germany, besides those I have mentioned. Neither the Louvre nor the Antwerp Museum1 possesses a single example. The Royal Gallery at Madrid and the Uffizj at Florence contain, as we have seen, some, excellent works; but besides these.it is doubtful whether there are any to be met with in the South of Europe. In the North, St. Petersburg claims to be the possessor of several paintings, but her claims have never been verified. Copenhagen likewise has a portrait of Durer, said to have been painted by himself, and which has been pronounced by some critics to be genuine. In England, in the National Gallery, we have a "Bust Portrait of a Senator," as the catalogue describes it;2 probably a portrait of one of the Rath, for the grand old man is dressed in a purple robe with a fur collar, and wears a gold chain round his neck with an order decoration, which doubt less implies that he held some office in the state : but this portrait, although dated 15 14, is painted in Diirer's early hard manner, and gives one no idea of the vivid force with which he executed such portraits as that of Holzschuher and other of his later works. It is to be regretted that we have no better specimen of his art in the national collection, for I must warn my readers against accepting this portrait (although I believe it to be genuine) as any measure of the artist's powers. Besides this portrait of a senator in the National Gallery, and the portrait of the elder Diirer in Syon House, there is also a charming portrait of a young Nurnberg girl, Catharine Ftirleger, in the collection of Mr. Wynn Ellis in London. This young girl, who belonged to one of the noblest patrician families in Nurnberg, was twice painted by Diirer in the year 1497 (that is, soon after his settlement in Nurnberg), once as a Magdalen, with her beautiful hair flowing loose over her shoulders, and once in regular portrait style with her hair bound up in orderly manner. The former of these 1 The portrait of Frederick of Saxony in the Antwerp Museum was probably copied from the woodcut. 8 No. 245. PAINTINGS IN ENGLAND. 22g portraits is now in the Stadel Institut at Frankfort, whilst the latter is the one in the possession of Mr. Wynn Ellis. It was exhibited this last summer at the Burlington Club.1 Both portraits were derived from the same source, they having formerly belonged to the Bishop of Olmiitz. These are, I am afraid, the only paintings in England that have really good claims to be considered genuine, although there are a great many others that pass with Durer's name. Dr. Waagen, it is true, mentions a Nativity at Burleigh House, seat of the Earl of Exeter, " erroneously ascribed to Herri de Bles," which he believes to be by Diirer, and he likewise ascribes to him a portrait of Maximilian in the collection of Lord Northwick ; but Dr. Waagen, it is to be feared, was sometimes a little too lax and hasty in his judgments about pictures in England, and gave names to them without sufficient consideration. There is, however, on the other hand, one picture in England which he has cautiously assigned to Wohlgemuth that I think he might with some reason have permitted to retain the name of the younger master. I mean a painting of the Crucifixion, in the possession of the Rev. Fuller Russell of Greenhithe. This fine painting was formerly in the collection of Dr. Campe at Nurnberg, and when in his collection it was certainly considered to be an early work of Durer's. It is signed with his monogram, and several of the figures are strikingly like his peculiar types. The conception is powerful and the composition well balanced ; a group of women, especially, to the left of the cross being nobly conceived and expressed. On the other hand, the drawing is in some parts faulty and the execution is very unequal: these are faults, however, which it is natural to suppose must sometimes have occurred in his early works: and altogether the picture bears so com pletely the impress of his thought and genius, that in spite of these deficiencies I could not help exclaiming when I saw it that it must be a Diirer. It is certainly a far greater work than the "Taking down from the Cross" at Nurnberg. 1 There seems to be but little doubt concerning the genuineness of this picture. Herr Otto Mundler writes to me thus about it : " I know its history very well, for it was I who brought it to London. It is far from being in a good state of preservation ; it has been restored by a very clever artist, M. Deschler of Augsburg ; but it is still a very charming work, and it has the great advantage of being the original. The Speck collection at Liitzschema has only a copy of the time." 23o LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. I cannot conclude the subject of Durer's paintings in England with out mentioning one that German writers on the subject assume to be now in this country, but which, after the most diligent search, I have not been fortunate enough to discover. The picture in question represents the DEATH OF THE VIRGIN, and was painted by Durer in fulfilment of a commission given him by Georg von Zlatko, Bishop of Vienna. The features of the dying Virgin are those of Mary of Burgundy, the beloved wife of the Emperor Maximilian, and the scene depicted is that of her death-bed. Most of the figures are portraits. Maximilian himself is present, and Philip of Spain, Mary's son, is introduced as St. John, who stands by the bedside and puts the taper into the dying woman's hand. The Bishop, Georg von Zlatko, stands in the middle of the room with an open book in his hand, in which Durer's monogram and the date 151 8 are inscribed. From the description given of it by Heller and other writers, this must be one of Durer's most important paintings : it was painted in the middle period of his life, and there is every reason to believe that it is a most carefully executed work. What makes it the more extraordinary that this picture should now be missing is that it was certainly in the celebrated collection of the Count of Fries at Vienna as recently as 1822. At the sale of the Count's pictures it is supposed 'to have passed over into England. " It unfortunately went across the Channel " are Dr. von Eye's words respecting it ; and well may he say " unfortunately," if such a treasure be really in this country without any one being the wiser or the better for it. But I cannot believe that such is the case, for I have sought for it here in every direction, and I think it is improbable that if it were in this country I should have gained no clue to its present possessor.1 DRAWINGS. The limits of this work will not allow me to do more than mention a few of the principal collections of Durer's drawings, for it would take volumes instead of pages were I to attempt to describe each 1 A writer in the Athenaum, Aug. 21, 1869, says that this picture hangs over the high altar in St. Wolfgang's Church, on Lake Wolfgang, in Upper Austria. It is scarcely probable that this can be the original painting. DRAWINGS IN THE ALBERT COLLECTION. 2 pi separate sketch or study that he has left ; hundreds, indeed I might say thousands, of which are now scattered in various public and private collections in Germany, England, and other countries. The most important, both as to size and merit, of all known collections is that of the late Archduke Albert of Sachsen Teschen at Vienna,1 formed originally by the Emperor Maximilian, and increased by other art-loving princes from his time to that of the Archduke Albert. Here are some of the greatest treasures of Durer's art, for nowhere is the mind of the artist expressed more freely than in his sketched thoughts. In a rough and hasty drawing we may often catch the first glimmering of some great conception, afterwards executed perhaps in a totally different form to the crude study, or possibly never executed at all, but remaining in the limbo of things that might have been. The studies of almost all great artists are interesting, but Durer's are especially so, in that the chief power of his art lies in his firm and accurate drawing. His lines never wander, but even in his rudest sketch express all that they are meant to express, in a clear and masterly manner; many even of his paintings, particularly his early ones, have more the character of coloured drawings than of creations clothed from the beginning in a glorious garb of colour, such as that in which Titian, and some of the other great colourists of the world, conceived their glowing forms. But Durer's strength lay not in colour, but in intellect and design, and these qualities are visible in his drawings even more clearly than in his finished works. Of his three printed Passions, not one exceeds in power and beauty of design the twelve drawings of the Passion in this col lection, executed in 1504 They are drawn with extraordinary deli cacy on a green prepared ground, the lights being heightened with white. Sandrart, who saw these drawings in the possession of the Emperor Ferdinand III., "who showed them to me himself" he says, praises them above all the other Passions ; and certainly they are so marvellously executed, and bear so directly the impress of the artist's mind and hand, that one cannot feel astonished at his preference. Several of the subjects that are weak in the other Passions are powerful and full of character here ; indeed the knowledge and expression of 1 Now in the possession of the Archduke Charles. It is always called the Albert collection, and it is convenient to keep to this designation. 23 2 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. individual character in these drawings excels almost everything of the kind in his printed works. It is strange that Diirer never engraved this series of the Passion. Possibly it was executed for the Emperor Maximilian, or some other patron who wished to have a unique copy. We find now and then a repetition of some idea or arrangement of material from it occurring in his later works, but as a whole the Passion in drawing differs more from the other three in its composition than they differ from each other.1 Besides this beautiful series of the Passion, there are a great many finished drawings in this magnificent collection of the very highest beauty ; likewise studies of all sorts finished and unfinished, first rough jottings of ideas, and elaborate designs, notes de voyage, studies of costumes, numerous portraits (amongst them his own portrait, already mentioned, taken when he was "still a child") designs for his wood cuts and engravings, a design for the Car of Maximilian, views of Nurnberg and of Antwerp, Holy Families, Virgins, Adorations, drawings of Saints, powerful heads of old men, &c, &c. ; the whole forming a rich index to the varied studies and thoughts of the artist mind. Next in importance to the collection at Vienna comes that of the British Museum, which is not far behind the German one in richness and size. The drawings in the British Museum, with a few exceptions, are contained in a large folio volume, bound in black leather, with the word "Teckening," and the date 1637, as well as Diirer's mono gram stamped in gold on the cover. The greater number of these drawings appear to have been origi nally derived from the collection of the Imhof family in Niirnberg — the largest known collection of Diirer's works in the sixteenth century;2 but in the seventeenth century they passed into the posses- 1 The Passion in drawing has been lithographed by Pilizotti, and lately the whole series of Durer's drawings in the Albert collection have been admirably repro duced in autotype by M. Adolphe Braun. 2 It may perhaps be interesting to the reader to learn something of the history of this celebrated family collection. Hans Imhof II., the founder of it, so often men tioned by Durer, married Felicitas, the daughter of Pirkheimer, and at his father-in- law's death he inherited a great many of his art treasures, and amongst them most probably a number of Durer's drawings. But before this he had already begun to make a collection himself ; he was a friend of Diirer's, and no doubt obtained many " art things " from him, either as presents, or for a small price, and when he died his collection was already a considerable one. It descended to his third son Willibald DRA WINGS IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM. 233 sion of the celebrated Earl of Arundel, who, it is supposed, acquired the volume in which they are contained in the year 1637 (the date on the cover), either at Nurnberg or in the Netherlands. In the following century the volume in question fell into the hands of Sir Hans Sloane, who bequeathed it with the rest of his collection to the British Museum in 1753. Many of the drawings are of course mere hasty studies, without any particular merit or interest; others are so greatly injured by time and damp as to be nearly effaced, whilst others are certainly not by Durer; but enough remain (for there are upwards of two hundred in this volume) to reveal to us something of Durer's wonderful skill as a draughtsman, and perfect mastery over whatever vehicle he chose to use for the expression of his ideas. Some of these drawings are in water-colour some, in body colour, or tempera some are drawn with the brush on prepared grounds, some are in pen and ink, some in pencil, some in chalk, in coloured crayon, in silver point, or in Imhof, named after his maternal grandfather (the same who gives such a prosaic account of his courtship, see page 54), who was a great connoisseur and lover of art, and who added to the family collection to a great extent, buying drawings, &c, from Andreas and the " Diirerin" (not Agnes, but the wife of Andreas) whenever he had an opportunity. He likewise inherited the art treasures of his aunt Barbara, Pirk heimer's second daughter, so that at his death in 1580 the Imhof collection was, as far as regards Durer's drawings, the largest and richest in existence. He has left a quaint catalogue of his treasures, entitled " Memorial Book for me Willibald Imhof of Niirn berg," in which he gives"a description of many of Durer's works, thus enabling us to recognise in many instances those which have descended from his collection. He had the true spirit of a collector, and gave express instructions in his will and to his children that his collection was never to be broken up, but was to descend from father to son of the race of Imhof, remaining to their house as an everlasting honour, never to be turned into money. But scarcely was this good collector dead than his wife and children prepared to disregard his last instructions, and treated with the Emperor Rudolph for the sale of Durer's works. The purchase was not made by the Emperor, but still it is probable that some of the drawings went to Prague at this time. After this the collection was by degrees entirely broken up. Only one of Willibald Imhofs sons appears to have inherited to any extent the taste of his father, and even he could not avoid selling " Diirer things" whenever a good offer was made for them. By this time they began to have great value, and foreign princes and connoisseurs vied with one another in obtaining possession of them. The Earl of Arundel seems to have been particularly fortunate, for besides the volume of drawings above-mentioned he obtained for himself and his king a vast number of valuable works, which are now dispersed, and many, alas ! lost or destroyed. Constantly, however, even now, in various galleries and collections we come across something "formerly in the Arundel collection!' H H 234 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. charcoal; some are finished paintings, whilst others are mere out lined studies ; but they all have interest as being the work of a true artist, and the English nation, although it cannot boast possession of many of Durer's pictures, has, at all events, a most important memorial of his art in the big old book in the print-room of the Museum, where all lovers of Durer's art may study it if they please. I have already in the course of this work alluded to many of these drawings and sketches : it is therefore unnecessary to repeat the description of them in this place. A few however still remain which deserve especial notice. Of these I may mention : — No. 19. — A characteristic head of an old man who looks like a weather-beaten fisherman. Painted in water-colour, on thick paper. No. 24. — A man's head and bust, finely painted. The chief peculiarity of this study is the fine green-tinted beard of the man. No. 25. — A magnificent painting of an old Jew's head, with white cap and long white beard. This head is painted in body colour, on a gold background, which in many places shows through the varied flesh tints. It is said to be a study for a figure in the Boisser6e collection. No. 28. — A noble head drawn in charcoal. This head often occurs in Durer's works. No. 47. — A large man's head in chalk, considered by Dr. Waagen to be a portrait of Diirer himself. No. 49. — Drawing of an old woman ; on pale green ground, much effaced. Thought to be a portrait of Durer's mother. No. 50. — Portrait of a young woman, above which is written, "Fronica Formschneiderin, 1525." Boldly drawn, and interesting in that it proves that women sometimes practised wood-engraving in the sixteenth century. No. 56.— Christ crowned with thorns sitting on a tomb. Black heightened with white on prepared red ground. No. 68. — Pencil drawing for his own coat of arms. Nos. 87, 88, and 89. — Three coloured sketches for the woodcut of the Great Column, one having the figure of the satyr at the top. Very ugly and unmeaning, like the woodcut. Nos. 93, 94— Studies for the Presentation in the Temple already mentioned. No. 123.— Beautiful study for an Adoration. Drawn with the PEN AND INK DRAWING IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM. DRA WINGS IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM. 235 brush on prepared green ground ; black heightened with white. Resembles in treatment the drawings of the Passion in the Albert collection. Nos. 141, 142. — Beautiful little pen-drawings, probably designs for handles of swords or other jewellers' work. No. 141, a knight kneeling, with his helmet and feathers on the ground before him. No. 142, Virgin and Child and adoring Saint. Most delicately executed. No. 143. — Fine pen-drawing of a bird. Most carefully executed. Nos. 149, 150. — Several slips of very fine pen-drawings, resembling in character the borders of the Maximilian Prayer-Book. No. 157. — Charming drawing of rabbits. No. 158. — Fine bold pen-drawing of a Cupid with powerful wings and quiver. No. 161. — Drawing of the Rhinoceros for the woodcut. No. 166. — Study of red sandstone rocks carefully painted in water-colour. No. 173. — Pen-drawing for the Prodigal Son. The drawing is not so forcible as the engraving, from which it differs in many par ticulars. Reverse side. No. 171. — Water-coloured drawing of a young man sitting under a tree singing to an instrument. Nos. 187, 188, 189. — Three studies before-mentioned for the Coro nation of Virgin. No. 175. — Cupid with a whole swarm of bees about his head flying to Venus for protection ; he has been meddling with their hives. Above is a verse to the effect that the stings of love are worse than the stings of bees. Painted in washy water-colour. I scarcely think this drawing can be by Diirer, it is so unlike him in subject. No. 178.— Noble study for a St. Christopher. Drawn with the brush on dark-grey paper and heightened with white. Nos. 181, 182.— Studies for the subject of Adam and Eve. A large coloured study for the centre picture of the Baumgartner Altar-piece in the Pinakothek at Munich. Although this drawing is greatly injured by damp, it looks to me to be softer and less archaic in expression than the finished painting at Munich. Besides the drawings in the Sloane book, there are a few others kept loose in a portfolio that have been acquired by the Museum at H H 2 236 LIFE OF ALBRECHT D URER. ¦different times. Several of these were in the Cracherode collection, bequeathed in i799; others were left by Payne Knight; and some have been purchased. Amongst these there is a most beautiful and poetic landscape, painted in water-colours, which reveals Durer's deep feeling of the harmony of nature. A large expanse of water, an island with a curious tall house upon it, and the banks of the river or lake are all bathed in soft evening sunlight, which tinges with its magic everything that it touches. Every reflection in the clear water, every blade of grass on the bank, is carefully and lovingly painted, and the whole scene, though only a sketch, produces an effect on the spectator beyond that of many elaborately finished paintings. The house on the island, upon which the word " Weinhaus " is here written in Durer's hand, is the same as he has represented in his engraving of the Virgin and the Monkey. It was probably some place near Nurnberg. Another splendidly executed work is a dead kingfisher, every single feather of which is painted in the most minute manner in brilliant body colour. The bird's breast is a perfect blaze of colour. It is dated 1521, and was therefore probably one of the studies that Diirer mentions having made in the Netherlands. A head of Christ, drawn in black and white, on a pale blue ground, dated 1508; a Virgin and Child of peculiar conception for Diirer, drawn in black and white on a brown ground ; an old man's head and a Virgin and Child, with proportion lines drawn in red ink over the faces, are the only other drawings in the British Museum that claim any especial notice here.1 In addition to these drawings in the National collection, there are likewise some rare treasures of Durer's art in the possession of private gentlemen in this country. The recent exhibition of the Burlington Club has brought many of these to light. Besides the fine collection of engravings and woodcuts there displayed,2 there were some most interesting drawings in a room up-stairs belonging chiefly to Mr. Malcolm, Mr. C. S. Bale, and Mr. Alfred Morrison. Several 1 I regret extremely that the limits of this work will not allow me to give a complete catalogue of the drawings by Diirer in the British Museum. It is to be hoped that such a catalogue will soon be published. s It is strange that there was not one impression of the Arch of Maximilian amongst these. DRA WINGS IN OTHER COLLECTIONS. 237 coloured drawings of flowers, in the possession of Mr. C. S. Bale, are executed with the minuteness and delicacy of a first-rate illuminator; and the Back of a Kingfisher, from the Esdaile collection, now belonging to Mr. Morrison, is a marvel in its way for brilliancy of colour, although a well-known critic has declared that it cannot be by Diirer, because of its deficiency in foreshortening. Most beautiful are also a Virgin and Child drawn in Indian ink ; another study for the head of the Virgin in silver point, heightened with white on a red tinted ground ; and a Holy Family drawn with the pen : all three belonging to Mr. Malcolm. Two old men's heads, dated 1520, are very characteristic. They are executed in silver point, and probably formed a leaf of Durer's Netherland " Bilderbuch." They are now in the possession of Mr. R. S. Holford, who contributed several other drawings to the Burlington Club collection. There are no doubt many other unimportant drawings and studies belonging to private individuals in this country besides those exhi bited here ; indeed I know of several myself; but it is difficult to gain certain information about them. The Duke of Devonshire has a small collection at Chatsworth, and there are two pen-drawings in the Queen's collection at Windsor : beyond these I do not think there are any others that claim remark. The Louvre can only boast of fifteen drawings by Diirer, and of these only one is of any importance — a very fine head of an old man painted in water-colours on fine canvas or linen. Berlin until the purchase of Nagler's collection possessed only two or three second- rate studies. Bamberg has lately acquired the greater part of the magnificent collection of Joseph Heller, of which I have given the history elsewhere, so that now the Berlin and Bamberg collections rank only next to those of Vienna and England in richness and importance. The Royal collection at Dresden contains several beautiful works ; amongst them a Virgin and Child with angels, two rabbits in front, and Joseph sleeping in the background, of the most exquisite finish and delicacy. It is a fine pen-drawing on brown paper, the shadows darkened with Indian ink and the lights heightened with gold. Munich— besides the borders of the Maximilian Prayer-Book pre served in the Town Library— has a few drawings exhibited in the print-room of the Pinakothek. The Stadel Museum at Frankfort has 238 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. a good collection, and in many other smaller museums, libraries, and institutes of Germany there are scattered drawings and studies by Diirer of more or less value. PLASTIC WORKS. The most important of these is undoubtedly the hone-stone carving of the Birth OF St. John the Baptist, which is represented for the first time here. This marvellous work is cut in very high relief on a block of cream-coloured hone-stone (the stone usually used in litho graphy), measuring seven inches and a half in height, and five and a half in breadth. In this small space Diirer has managed to express the scene he represents with a richness of detail that is most surprising. Not only do we see the mother raising herself in bed to partake of some refresh ment brought her by her attendants ; the old father, Zacharias, writing on a tablet the name of his new-born son John, whom the people assembled would have called Zacharias; the infant Baptist himself in the arms of an old woman kneeling near the father, who looks up from the tablet with a curious pathetic expression on his face, for his tongue has not yet been loosed ; but every accessory of the apartment, every slightest detail of the dress of the spectators, is faithfully depicted. On a shelf to the right stand the jars, bottles, and ordinary utensils of a German household ; through a window, also to the right, we catch a glimpse of a street outside, and the little Durer dog gambols in front. A young man in the foreground, who is apparently entering at the door of the room, is supposed to be a portrait of Diirer himself. It bears more resemblance to the later woodcut however than to his earlier portraits. His monogram and the date 1510 is cut on a tablet at the foot of the bed. There seems to be no doubt that this work is perfectly genuine, and it exhibits Durer's powers as a sculptor to a remarkable extent. The expression in the faces of the actors in the scene is full of indi vidual character, and the whole subject has a rich pictorial effect such as we seldom see in works of this kind. It was acquired by Payne Knight in the Netherlands about the end of the last century for the .¦__. _^^_j^, -±^*~A'^J^'ri£'*ltrmr~-i<) the goldsmith the four new pieces. I have drawn in charcoal the Genoese named Tomasin Florianus, Romanus born at Lucca (Romanus von Luca biirtig), and Tomasin's two brothers, named Vincent and Gerhartus, all three Pumbelij [sic]. And so many times have I dined with Tomasin, jjjjjjjjjjjj. [Well expressed, Durer! The Italian Tomasin would not have appeared nearly so hospitable had you simply recorded that you had dined with him twelve times. This Tomasin and his brothers were evidently much liked by Diirer; he mentions them very often, as we shall see in the course of his journal] Moreover I have given the Treasurer (Rentmeister) [possibly the Treasurer of the Painters' Guild in Antwerp] a little Child's Head on linen (ein Leinen Kindskopffel). Also Tomasin has given me a plaited hat of elder-pith. Also I have dined once with the Portuguese. Also I have given Tomasin's brother 3 guldens' worth of engraved art. Moreover Herr Erasmus has given me a Spanish mantilla and 3 portraits of men. [This " Herr Erasmus " was the great Erasmus of Rotterdam. Diirer appears to have first made his acquaintance at this time in Antwerp, but he afterwards renewed it at Brussels, where he painted his portrait. We shall gain further on in the journal some insight into Durer's opinion of the clever but unsatisfactory satirist-reformer.] Moreover Tomasin's brother has given me a pair of gloves. And again I have drawn Vincentio, Tomasino's brother ; also I have given Meister Augustin Lumbarth [Lombard (?) Perhaps a brother of Lambert Lombard the painter] the 2 parts imagines (cceli). [Imagines cceli Septen- trionalis et Imagines cceli Meridionalis, two maps of the heavens engraved by Diirer]. Also I have drawn the Italian ( Wahlen) with the crooked nose, whose name is Opitius. Item : My wife and my maid-servant dined one day at Herr Tomasin's house. That is 4 times. Item :. Our Lady's Church at Antwerp [Cathedral] is so immensely big that many masses may be sung in it at one time without one interfering with the other, and it has altars and rich foundations and the best musicians that it is possible to have. The church has many devout services and stonework, and particularly a beautiful tower. And I have also been to the rich Abbey of St. Michael, which has the costly stone seat in its choir. And at Antwerp they spare no cost about such things, for there is money enough there. [The Cathedral at Antwerp that Diirer so much admired was burnt down 2?0 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. shortly after his visit (namely in 1533)- Only the choir and the "beautiful tower" were saved. It was however rebuilt in the sixteenth century, and now contains a "costly" memorial in the shape of Rubens' celebrated Descent from the Cross.] I have taken the portrait of Herr Nicolaus an astronomer, who dwells with the King of England, and who has been obliging and useful to me in many things. He is a German, born at Munich. [Nicolaus Kratzer is here meant, the celebrated astronomer and mathematician who taught at Oxford in the reign of Henry VIII. He was also painted by Holbein.] Moreover I have drawn Tomasin's daughter, named Jungfrau Suten. Item : Hans Plaffroth has given me a Philipp's gulden [worth about 5 florins 14 kreutzers of modern German money] for taking his por trait in charcoal. And again I have dined (gessen) with Tomasin, and my host's father-in-law has invited me and also my wife. Moreover I have changed two bad gulden and 24 stiver [Diirer, we will hope, does not mean that he passed bad money, but only that he changed two light gulden that were not worth so much as usual] for living expenses. Moreover I have given 1 stiver for Trinkgeld for having been allowed to see a painting. Item : . I have seen on the Sunday after the Assumption of our Blessed Lady, the great procession from our Lady's Church at Antwerp, when the whole town was assembled, artisans and people of rank, every one dressed in the most costly manner according to his station. Every class and every guild had its badge by which it might be recognised ; large and costly tapers were also borne by some of them. There were also long silver trumpets of the old Frankish fashion. There were also many German pipers and drummers, who piped and drummed their loudest. Also I saw in the street, marching in a line in regular order with certain distances between, the gold smiths, painters, stonemasons, embroiderers, sculptors, joiners, carpenters, sailors, fishmongers, butchers, curriers, weavers, bakers, tailors, shoe makers, and all kinds of artisans and tradesmen who are useful in producing the necessaries of life (zu der nahrung dinstlich). In the same way there were the shopkeepers and the merchants and their assistants. After these there came the marksmen with firelocks, bows, and cross-bows, some on horseback and some on foot. After that came the City Guard. After that came a whole troop of very JOURNAL. 271 brave folk, all dressed in the most splendid and costly manner ; but before these there walked all the orders [religious orders], and each distinguished from the other, very piously. There were also in this procession a great number of widows who support themselves by the labour of their hands and keep a parti cular rule. They all had white linen cloths covering their heads and reaching down to their feet, very seemly to behold. Behind them I saw many brave persons [Diirer uses the word brave (tapper) in the old English sense of richly-dressed. "In brave attire." It is curious to note such affinities of meaning in the two sister languages, even when the words that express them are as unlike as brave and tapper. " Tapfer " now in German as in English has lost its old signification in regard to appearance, and only expresses valour, bravery], and the canons of our Lady's Church with all the priesthood and scholars followed behind, where 20 persons bore our Lady with the Lord Jesus ornamented in the most costly manner to the honour of the Lord God. And in this procession there were many very pleasant things (Freudenreiclts Dings), and it was very richly (kostlich) arranged. Then there were brought along many waggons with representations of ships, and other things. Then followed the Prophets all in order ; next the New Testament [Representations of characters and scenes from the New Testament in the manner of miracle plays], as, for instance, the Salutation of the Virgin, the Three Holy Kings on their camels, and other rare wonders, very beautifully arranged ; also how our Lady fled into Egypt, very piously set forth ; and many other things which for shortness I will leave out. At the last came a great dragon led by St. Margaret and her maidens by a girdle, which was particularly pretty ; then followed St. George with his squire, a very handsome Courlander. Also a great many boys and girls, dressed in the most costly and ornamental manner, according to the fashion of different countries, rode in this troop and repre sented so many saints. This procession from beginning to end was more than two hours passing by our house, and there were so many things that I could never write them all down even in a book, and so I let it alone (lass es also frei bleiben). [Durer's childish delight at this gorgeous religious show seems strange when we remember his Protestant tendencies; but the Virgin and Child, richly clothed and borne by forty persons " to the honour of the Lord God," evidently did not shock his religious feelings ; and the representation of the 2 7 _ z/fifi OF ALBRECHT D URER. Flight into Egypt he characterises as "very pious" (fast andachtig). This procession forms the subject of one of Ley's most celebrated paintings.] Item : I have been to the Fugger's house in Antwerp that he has lately built in a most costly manner, with a peculiar tower big and broad, and it has a beautiful garden ; and I have seen his handsome stallion. Item : Tomasin has given my wife 14 ells of good thick damask, and three ells and a half of satin for a lining. I have made a sketch for the goldsmiths of a woman's head. Item : The Factor of Portugal has presented me with wine in the inn, both Portuguese and French. Item : The Signor Ruderico of Portugal has presented me a small cask of preserved sugar of all kinds Sort, [sic] More over a box of sugar-candy, two great dishes full of sugar-penet, marchpain, and all kinds of other sweets, and some sugar-cane just as it grows. For this I have given his servant 1 florin for Trinkgeld. Moreover I have changed a bad (light) gulden and 12 stiver for living expenses. Item : The columns in the cloister of St. Michael in Antwerp are all cut from one piece of beautiful "black touchstone. I have sent out from Antwerp by Herr Gillgen, King Charles's door-keeper, a St. Jerome in the Cell, the Melancholy, the three new Marys, the Antony and the Veronica, all of which I have pre sented to the good sculptor whose name is Maister Conrad, whose like I have never seen, and who serves the Emperor Maximilian's daughter Frau Margaret. [The Archduchess Margaret, Regent of the Netherlands. We shall hear more of her hereafter. The politic Diirer evidently seeks to pave the way to her court by presents to her attendants.] And I have presented Maister Gillgen himself with a St. Eustachius and a Nemesis. Item : I owed my host 7 florins 20 stiver 1 heller on the Sunday before Bartholomew. Item : For sitting-room, bed rooms, and bedding, 1 1 florins for one month. I have now made a new arrangement with my host from the 27 day of August. It is settled that from the Monday after Bartholomew I am to eat with him, and to give for each meal 2 stiver and the drink without reckoning, but my wife and maid must hereafter cook and eat up-stairs (mogen heroben kochen und essen). I have given the Factor of Portugal a small carved figure of a child (geschniedenes Kindlein). Moreover, I have given him an Adam and Eve, the St. Jerome in Cell, the Hercules, the Eustachius, the Melancholy, and the Nemesis. Besides these, three new Virgin Marys, the Veronica, the Antony, the Christmas JOURNAL. 273 picture [Nativity] and the Crucifixion. Besides these, the best of the quarter sheets [Little Passion], which are eight pieces. Besides these, the three books of the Life of our Lady, Apocalypse, and Great Passion, besides the Little Passion and the Passion in Copper, worth in all 5 florins. And just as many I have given to the Signor Ruderigo the other Portuguese. Ruderigo has given my wife a little green parrot. Item : On the Sunday after Bartholomew (Sept. 2) I travelled with Herr Thomasin from Antwerp to Mechel (Mechlin) ; there we spent the night, and I invited Maister Conrad and a painter with him to supper ; and this Maister Conrad is the good carver in wood (Schnizer) that the Frau Margaret has. From Mechel we travelled through the little town of Wilszwort (Vilvorde), and came to Brussels on the Monday at mid-day (Sept. 3). I have given three stivers to the carrier. I have dined with my Lord of Brussels, also once with Herr Bonysius. [Bannissius, a member of the Imperial Council and an impor tant person, who would be likely to be of use to Diirer at the Netherlandish Court. This is no doubt the reason why] I presented him with a Passion in Copper. Item : I have given the Margrave Hansen [The Margrave Johannes of Ansbach and Bayreuth] the letter of introduction (Furder brief ) that the Bishop of Bamberg wrote for me, and I have given him a Passion in Copper to remember me; and I have dined once with my Lords of Nurnberg [the Niirnberg ambassadors]. I have seen in the golden chamber of the Rathhaus [Hotel de Ville] at Brussels the 4 painted matters (materien) which the great Meister Rudier has done. [" The great Meister Rudier " is Roger van der Weyden the elder. The paintings that Durer saw were the celebrated ones setting forth the virtue of Justice by means of the Legend of Herkenbald, an over-just judge in Brussels in the nth century. These remarkable paintings were, it is supposed, destroyed when the city was bombarded by the French in 1695.] And I have seen King Charles's house at Brussels, with its foun tains, labyrinth, and park. It gave me the greatest pleasure, and a more delightful thing (lustiger Ding) and more like a Paradise I have never before seen. Item : Erasmus is the name of the little man (Mannlein) that has placed my supplication in the hands of Herr Bonysius. [Not tlie well-known Erasmus, whom Durer always describes as N N 2H LIFE OF ALBRECHT D URER. Erasmus of Rotterdam.] Item: At Brussels there is a very big and costly Rathhaus built of hewn stone, with a splendid transparent tower Item : I have taken the portrait of Maister Conrad, who has been my host at Brussels, by candlelight at night. Also I have taken the portrait of Dr. Lamparter's son with charcoal, and at the same time that of the hostess. Also I have seen the thing which has been brought to the King from the new Golden Land [Mexico], a sun entirely of gold, a whole fathom broad. Likewise a silver moon just as big ; likewise two rooms full of armour ; likewise all kinds of arms, harness, and wonderful missiles, very strange clothing, bed-gear, and all kinds of the most wonderful things for man's use, that are as beautiful to behold as they are wonderful. [Everything is "wonderful" with Diirer now; a little while ago it was "costly;" he falls back on costly, however, in the next sentence.] These things are all so costly that they have been valued at a hundred thousand gulden. And I have never in all the days of my life seen anything that has so much rejoiced my heart as these things. For I have seen amongst them wonderfully artistic things, and I have wondered at the subtle Ingenia of men in foreign lands, and I do not know how to express the thing that I think about them. [Poor Diirer ! Journal-writing is certainly not his most happy mode of expression. If he could have painted those wonderful things now ! Here and elsewhere it is evident that he is immensely struck with the wealth and splendour of the Netherlands; and well he might be, for in the time of Charles V. it was perhaps the richest countiy in Europe. The new Golden Land of America was pouring her treasures of golden suns and silver moons into the pockets of the brave adventurers who first sought her shores, and — more than mere material wealth — the discovery of America was fostering a spirit of inquiry and enterprise as well in the Netherlands as in Spain and England that was hereafter to lead to noteworthy results. Before the end of the century the rich Low Lands achieved independence and ruin, but at the time of Durer's visit, 1520, they were enjoying the most peaceful prosperity. Murray's " Hand-book to Belgium," quoting an " old author," whose name unfortunately is not mentioned, describes the flourishing con dition of Antwerp at this period by saying that " 2,500 vessels were sometimes seen at one time lying in the river, laden with the productions of all quarters of the globe : 500 loaded waggons on an average entered its gates daily from the country. The money put in circulation annually exceeded 500,000,000 guilders, and 5,000 merchants met twice every day on the exchange." JOURNAL. 275 This number, if true, would be considerable even in these days, and when we consider that this was as early as the beginning of the sixteenth century it becomes truly amazing ; but even if we allow something for the exaggeration of the "old author," who is an authority not always to be trusted, there is no doubt that the commercial activity and manufacturing industry of the Flemish towns during the reigns of Maximilian and Charles V. were greater than at any other time in their history, and the rich Low Countries have always awakened the envious desire of all neighbouring states. It is not much to be wondered at then that Diirer, who had come from the comparatively poor though equally industrious Nurnberg, should be filled with astonishment at the riches and "costly" magnificence that he saw around him. " And at Antwerp," he writes, " they spare no cost for such things, for there is money enough there." Not so in Niirnberg, where Peter Vischer and his sons had to do their great work " to the honour of God and glory of St. Sebald," and where Diirer himself could scarcely obtain what was really his due from the Rath. Yet Diirer's love of his native town would not allow him to desert it even for the riches of the Netherlands. As in Venice he was offered a certain sum yearly from the Signory if he would stay in that city, so in Antwerp the Government made him the munificent offer of 300 Philipp's gulden, with a well-built house rent-free and an exemption from taxation, if he would leave Germany and settle amongst the Antwerp painters. But although he must have known that he would gain far more money and far more honour in the rich and art-loving Flemish city than he could hope to do in Nurnberg (whose Rath does not seem to have ever properly appreciated, at least in the way' of payment, the native art-genius of the town), he nevertheless preferred returning there to opening a German School of Art in the Netherlands. It is somewhat strange that he did, and it proves certainly that he could not have been of a mercenary nature ; for besides the advantages that a settlement in Antwerp would have afforded him in the shape of private commissions, &c, the Rath offered to pay him liberally for all the works he might execute for the town, over and above the yearly grant it allowed him ; from all which it is evident that the artist might have been "a gentleman" in Antwerp as well as in Venice had he so chosen.] I have besides seen many beautiful things in Brussels, and par ticularly I have seen a great fish-bone which, had the bits been put together, would have been a fathom long and very thick. It weighs 15 centner, and it has just such a fin (Furm) as I have here painted standing at the back of the fish's head. I have also been into the Nassau-house, which is built in such a costly style and so beautifully N N 2 _?6 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. ornamented. Again I have dined jj with my Lords [Nurnberg ambassadors]. Item: Madonna Margaretha [the Regent of the Netherlands] has sent for me, and has promised me she will promote my interests with King Charles V, and she has behaved with especial kindness towards me. I have presented her with my engraved Passion, and I have likewise given the same to her treasurer, who is named Jan Marini, and I have also drawn him in charcoal. I have given 2 stivers for a buffalo-horn ring. Moreover I have given 2 stiver for the opening of the picture of St. Luke. [Probably a closed altar-piece, the doors of which were only opened on feast-days, except on payment.] Item : When I was in the Nassau-house, I saw the good painting in the chapel that Meister Hugo has done. [Hugo van der Goes, called by Vasari "Hugo d'Anversa." He was a follower of the Van Eycks. Very few authentic pictures by him are now known to exist. What "good painting" it was that Diirer saw cannot now be ascertained.] And I saw the two beautiful large rooms and all the costly things in the house everywhere, and also the great bed in which 50 men might lie, and I have also seen the big stone which fell in a thunder-storm in the field close to the Count of Nassau. This house is very high, and there is a fine view from it, and it is much to be admired, and I do not think in all Germany there is anything like it. Item : Maister Bernhart the painter has invited me, and has given me such a costly meal that I do not believe it could be paid for with 10 florins. [Maister Bernhart is Bernard van Orley, court painter to the Archduchess Margaret. He studied in Italy, and was a friend and follower of Raphael, and was one of the leaders of the movement which introduced the imitation of Italian art into the Netherlands.] He also invited, in order that I might have good society, the Frau Margareth's treasurer, whom I have drawn ; the King's court-master, named Meteni; and the town treasurer, named Pusfladis, to whom I presented a Passion in Copper, and he has presented me in return with a black Spanish pouch worth 3 florins. To Erasmus of Rotterdam I have also presented a Passion engraved on copper. Item : To one Erasmus, who is the secretary to Banissius (Pauisius Secretaris), I have given a copper-engraved Passion. The man at Antwerp who gave me JOURNAL. 277 uie small child's head is called Lorenz Starck. Item : I have taken the portrait of Maister Bernhart, Frau Margareth's painter, in charcoal. I have again drawn (conterfet) Erasmus of Rotterdam. I have given Lorenz Stercken a Sitting St Jerome, and the Melancholy; and I have drawn my hostess's godmother. Item : 6 persons whose portraits I have taken at Brussels have given me nothing. I have paid 3 stiver for 2 buffalo horns, and 1 stiver for two Eulenspiegel. [Dr. Campe surmises that the Eulenspiegel here mentioned could not have been the celebrated print of that name by Lucas van Leyden, because of the extremely small price (id. for two copies) that Diirer gave for it. But when we remember that Diirer sold his own engravings for very little more proportionally — the large copper-plate of Adam and Eve, for instance, for four stiver — we shall not find it so extraordinary that he should have bought Van Leyden's print for what seems a ridiculously small sum compared with the enormous price that is now given for even an inferior copy. It is the great rarity of the print that now makes it so extravagantly dear, and not any higher intrinsic merit than others of Leyden's prints.] Then I travelled on the Sunday after St. Gilgen's day [Sept. 2] with Herr Tomasin to Mecheln, and I took leave of Herr Hans Ebner [one of the Nurnberg Ebner family, who was the Niirnberg ambassador at Brussels at the time of Durer's visit], and he would take nothing at all for my board during the 7 days that I was with him. I have expended j stiver on Hans Geuder's account. I have given one stiver to the host's man (Knecht) for Trinkgeld. And I had supper at Mechel with my lady of Neukirchen; and I set out from Mecheln early on the Monday, and travelled to Antwerp, and I ate my breakfast with the Portuguese [agent], who gave me three porcelains [Majolica dishes or bowls], and Ruderigo has given me some feather things from Calicut. I have expended 1 florin, and 2 stiver I have given to the messenger [or carrier], and I have bought for Susanna a mantle [Diirer here makes use of an old Flemish word, Hocken. He is very fond of sticking in any foreign word that he is acquainted with, and is always proud to show off his Latin when there is an opportunity: he generally mentions his prints by Latin titles] costing 2 florins 10 stiver. My wife has given 4 florins Rhenish for a sponge, for a.plaszpalch(l), for a deep dish, for slippers, and for wood for cooking, and also for knee-breeches and a parrot-cage (Sittichhaus), and also for two jugs and for Trinkgeld. [She certainly seems to have got enough for her 4 florins.] Moreover my wife has paid 21 stiver for eatables, drinkables, 27g LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. and all kinds of necessaries. Now on the Monday after ^Egydy [St. -Egidius] I have begun again with Jobst Planckfelter, and I have eaten with him jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj times. Item: To Niclas, Tomassin's man, I gave i stiver. I have given 5 stiver for the' small work (Leistlein), moreover 1 stiver. My host has presented me with an Indian Uns (?) and an old Turkish Gaisel (?). And again this time I have dined with Tomasin jjjjjjjjjjjjj times. Item : The two Herren von Rogendorff have invited me, and I have once dined with them, and I have sketched their coat-of-arms large upon wood so that it may be cut (das mans schneiden mag). [This state ment is significant with regard to the wood-engraving question. It evidently does not mean that Diirer was going to cut his design on the block himself] I have given away a stiver. My wife has changed a gulden and 24 stiver for living expenses. I have given 2 stiver for Trinkgeld. I have dined once at the Fuggers' house with young Jacob Rehlinger, and once I have dined with him alone. Item : My wife has changed a gulden and 24 stiver for living expenses. I have presented Wilhelm Hauenhut, the Duke Friederick's servant, with an engraved St. Jerome, and the two new half-sheets, the Maria and the St. Anthony. Item : Moreover I have presented Herr Jacob Ponisio [Banissius] with a good painted Veronica, an Eustachius, Melancholy, a Sitting St. Jerome, St. Anthony, the two new Virgin-pictures, and the new Peasants ; so also I have sent Erasmus (dem Erasmo), who presented my supplication, a Sitting St. Jerome, the Melancholy, the St Anthony, and the new Virgin-pictures ; and the whole that I have given him is worth vii florins. [The two engraved Virgins dated 1520, are The Virgin crowned by one Angel (Heller, 537); and The Virgin with the Child in Swaddling Clothes (Heller, 585). These are probably the two new Virgin-pictures (Marien-bilder) to which he alludes.] I have given Maister Marx Goldschmied a Passion in Copper, and he has given me jjj florins in compensation; moreover I have received 3 guilder 20 stiver for art. To Honing the glazier I have given 4 little copper prints. I have dined with Herr Bonisius jjj times. I have given 4 stiver for charcoal and black chalk. I have given 1 florin 8 stiver for wood, moreover 3 stiver. Ten times I have dined with my Lords of Nurnberg [the Nurnberg ambassadors]. Item : Maister Dietrich the glass painter has sent me the red colour that is found in Antwerp in JOURNAL. 279 the new bricks. Item : I have drawn Maister Jacob von Lubeck with charcoal, who has presented my wife with a Philipp's gulden, but I have changed a Philipp's gulden for living expenses. I have presented the Frau Margaret [Archduchess] with a Sitting St. Jerome engraved on copper. I have sold a wood Passion (ein holz Passion) for 12 stiver, and an Adam and Eve for 4 stiver. Item: Felix the captain and lute-player has bought of me a whole set of copper engravings, a Passion engraved in wood, a Copper Passion, 2 half-sheets, and 2 quarter sheets, for 8 gold gulden, so I have presented him with a whole copper set. [Felix Hungersberg was the principal musician of the Imperial band, and held the rank of captain in the Imperial army. Diirer was evidently fond of music, as may be seen in his letters from Venice, in which he speaks with great delight of having got into the society of "good lute-players." He took this Hungersberg's portrait more than once. Upon the drawing in the Albert collection Diirer has written, " Der Kostlich und Vebiegrad Lautenschlacher."] I have drawn Herr Ponisius [Banissius] in charcoal. Item : Ruderigo has again given me a parrot, and I have given his boy 2 stiver for Trinkgeld. I have given Johann von Winckel, trumpeter, a little wood- engraved Passion, a St. Jerome in the Cell, and a Melancholy. I have given 6 stiver for a pair of shoes. I have given 5 stiver for a meer- ruten (?"), and George Schlautersbach has given me just such another, costing 6 stiver. I have dined once with Wolff Haller, the Fuggers' servant [probably agent], and who had invited my Lord of Nurnberg [ambassador at Antwerp]. Item : I have made 2 Philipp's florins and 6 stiver by art. I have dined once with my wife. I gave 1 stiver to Hans Dener's servant for Trinkgeld. Item : I have made 100 stiver by art.- Item: Maister Jacob, the Rogendorff's painter, I have drawn in charcoal. Item : I have sketched the Rogendorff arms on wood, for which he has given me vii ells of velvet. And I have dined again with the Portugal agent. I have drawn Maister Jararott Priick in charcoal, who gave me 1 florin for it. Item : I have given 23 stivers for a kull riicken kiirschen (?). I have sent 2 florins in gold, in a letter to Augsberg through the Fuggers' house at Antwerp, to Hans Schwarzen for my own portrait (Angesicht). Item: I have paid 31 stiver for a red shirt. I have paid 2 stiver for the colour found in the bricks. Item : I have given 9 stiver for an ox-horn. I have drawn a Spaniard 280 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. in charcoal. I have dined with my wife. I have given jj stiver for a dozen small pipes. I have given 3 stiver for two small cups, like those that Felix gave my wife ; and Maister Jacob, the Lubeck painter, has also given my wife such an one. [Diirer and his wife seem to have had a taste for china. He several times mentions purchases and gifts of it.] I have dined again with Rogendorff. Item: I have given a stiver for the printed Entry into Antwerp; how the King was received with a costly triumph ; how the gates were ornamented in the most costly manner ; how there was music and great rejoicing, and beautiful young maidens, whose like I have seldom seen. [Dr. Campe in a note to this passage states that it was the custom at these sort of triumphal progresses to exhibit the most beautiful maidens of the town all but naked to the public gaze, and that this was not considered a disgrace, but rather an honour to the fair ones, who fought for the distinction of being chosen for the purpose. Diirer himself alluded more particularly to the maidens of Antwerp in a subsequent conversation with Melanchthon, whom he told that he had observed these naked young women " very attentively and closely, and without shame, because he was a painter." (See " Manlii Collectanea locor. Communium," page 345. Quoted by Campe.) Charles V., not having Durer's excuse, cast down his eyes as he passed the fair ones ; which, it is said, offended them mightily. The entry into Antwerp took place Sept. 23, 1520.] I have given 2 florins for provisions. I have seen at Antwerp the bones of the great giant ; the bone above the knee is five and a half ordinary feet in length, and excessively heavy and very thick ; the same with the shoulder-blade ; it is as broad as a strong man would be across the back, and there were other bones of the giant, and the man was 18 feet high, and reigned in Antwerp, and did great wonders, and the Lords of the towns have had a great deal written about him in an old book. [This book is still preserved in the town archives of Antwerp. — F. V.1]. Item : Raphael von Urbin's things were all scattered after his death, but Thomas Polonier, one of his pupils, a good painter, who was desirous of seeing me, came to me and gave me a gold antique ring (antiga), with a very good cut stone in it, worth 5 florins, but I have been offered double that money for it. In return for this I have given 1 The above initials indicate F. Verachter, the keeper of the town archives of Antwerp, who published in 1840 a Dutch translation of this Journal, from which T Wr. (rif-nned many useful notes, all of which I have marked as above. JOURNAL. 2Si him all my best printed things, worth 6 florins. Item : 3 stiver for a turkey (Calacut). I have paid j stiver to the messenger, and 3 stiver I have dissipated with comrades. Item : I have presented Frau Margaret, the Emperor's sister, with an entire set of all my things, and I have sketched for her two matters on parchment with great diligence and trouble. I estimate them as worth 30 florins, and I have been obliged to sketch out the plan of a house for her doctor, according to which he is going to have one built, and I would not willingly have undertaken this work for 10 florins. Item : I have given the servant j stiver and 1 stiver for brick-colour. Item : I have given Herr Niclaus Ziegler a Dead Christ worth 3 florins. To the Portugal factor a painted Child's Head worth j florin. I have given 10 stiver for a small buffalo-horn. I have given a gold gulden for an elk's foot. [Perhaps these things were presents or purchases for Pirkheimer, who was a great collector of horns of animals.] Item : I have drawn Master Adrian in charcoal. I have given 2 stiver for the Condemnatzen (?) and the dialosos (?), and 3 stiver to the messenger. I have given Maister Adrian art to the value of 2 florins j stiver for red chalk. I have drawn Herr Wolff von Rogendorf with pencil. I have given away 3 stiver. I have drawn a noblewoman in Thomassins' house. I have given Nicolaus a St. Jerome in the Cell, and the two new Virgin-pictures. I have given Thomas Polonius — [The verb here is geben to give, not schenken to give, in the sense of making a present, as it is in all other cases. The number of presents of his works that Diirer made during this tour is quite surprising. Every page contains a record of something or other that he has given away, either to his friends or as propiti atory offerings to persons in authority through whom he hoped to gain access to Charles V. In this case, however, the giving was a question of exchange. Thomas Polonius, as Diirer calls him, but whose proper name was Tomaso Vincidor of Bologna, was an insignificant scholar of Raphael's. Diirer, how ever, considered him a good painter. Raphael had died in the April of this year, on Good Friday.] — on the Monday after Michaelmas a whole set of the engravings (ein ganzen Truck), and he has sent them to Rome for me by another painter, who is to send me some of Raphael's things [drawings, &c.]. I have dined with my wife. I have given 3 stiver for the little tract. Polonius has taken my portrait, which he will take with him to Roma- o o 2g2 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. [Afterwards engraved by Andreas Stock.] I have given 20 stiver for an elk's foot. Moreover I have given 2 gold guilders and 4 stiver for Herr Hans Ebner's painting (Tafelein). [Does this mean that he had been buying a painting for Hans Ebner, who, it will be remembered, was the Niirnberg am bassador?] I have changed a crown for living expenses. I have taken eleven guilders to spend in living expenses at Ach [Aachen or Aix-la- Chapelle], and have received from Ebner 2 florins 4 stiver. Paid 9 stiver for wood [whether for burning or painting on does not appear]. I have given 20 stiver to the coachman to take me to Weyding. I have drawn a lady of Bruges, who has given me a Philipp's guilder. I have given 3 stiver for Trinkgeld, jj stiver for varnish, j stiver for stone colour, 13 stiver to the coachman, and j stiver for leather. I have given 2 stiver for two shells. I have drawn an Italian gentleman (Welscheu) in Johann Gabriel's house, who has presented me with two gold guilders. Have given 2 florins 4 stiver for a portmanteau (Felles). I travelled from Antwerp to Ach (Aachen) on the Thursday after Michaelmas [one is glad to come across such a well-known feast and ascertain able date as this. The moveable feasts and saints' days that he so often dates by are most difficult to fix exactly], and I have taken another guilder and a noble with me. And when I had travelled through Maestrich we came to Giilpen, and from thence to Ach on the Sunday. Up to this time, with travelling expenses and all, I have spent 3 florins. At Aachen I have seen the Proportionirten columns, with their beautiful capitals of porphyr, green and red and gassenstain (?) which Charlemagne brought from Rome and set up there. They were done according to the writing of Vitruvius. Item : I have given a gold guilder at Aachen for a bullock's horn. I have drawn Hans Ebner and George Schlauderspach with charcoal, and Hans Ebner again. I have given 2 stiver for a soft hone-stone [probably to execute some carving upon]. Item : 5 stiver for bathing, and for drinking with comrades. I have changed j guilder for living expenses. I have given 2 white pfenning to the townsman who took me over the Hall. I have spent in drinking with comrades and in bathing 5 white pfenning. I have lost 7 stiver with Herr Hans Ebner at play (verspielt). I have drawn young Christopher Groland in chalk ; also my host Peter von Enden. I have spent 3 stiver with comrades, and have given 1 stiver to the messenger. I have drawn Paulus Topler and Merten JOURNAL. 283 Pfinzing in my little book [see p. 101]. I have seen the Emperor Henry's arm, our Lady's chemise, girdle, and other relics. I have sketched our Lady's church. I have drawn Sturm. [Gaspar Sturm was the herald-at-arms who assisted at the taking of the castle of Sickengen, and who was charged with conducting Luther to the Diet of Worms.] I have drawn Peter von Enden's father-in-law in charcoal. I have given 10 white pfenning for a great bull's horn. I have given 2 white pfenning for Trinkgeld, and I have changed a guilder for living expenses. I have lost at play 3 white pfenning, moreover 2 stiver lost at play jj white pfenning given to the messenger. I have given Tomasin's daughter the painted Trinity, worth 4 florins. I have paid j stiver for washing. I have drawn the Kopffingrin's sister in charcoal, and again in pencil. I have spent 3 white pfenning in bathing. I have given 8 white pfenning for a buffalo-horn. Item : 2 white pfenning for a girdle, Item : I have given 1 Philipp's guilder for a scarlet breast handkerchief, and 6 pfenning for paper. I have changed 1 florin for living expenses. I have given 2 white pfenning for washing. Item : On the 23d day of October King Charles [Charles V.] was crowned at Aachen. There [at the coronation] I have seen all kinds of costly splendour, and no one living in our part of the country has ever seen such costly things ; how then can one describe them ? Item : I have given Mathes 1 1 florins' worth of art ; also I have given Stefan, chamberlain to Frau Margareth, 3 pieces of art [engravings]. I have given 1 florin 10 white pfenning for a cedar-wood Paternoster. I have given I stiver to the little Hans in the stable, and I stiver to the child in the house. Three stiver and a half I have lost at play, 2 stiver I have squandered away, and 2 stiver I have paid the barber. Moreover I have changed a guilder. [Evidently Diirer was somewhat dissipated and spent his money rather freely at Aachen. No doubt he got a lecture for it when he returned to Antwerp and dined again with his wife without costliness. Threepence-halfpenny lost at play is really very terrible. The Rechenmeisterinn will not approve of such proceedings, you reckless artist !] I have given 7 white pfenning for Trinkgeld in the house, and I set out from Aachen to Gulch, and from thence to ... . I have paid 4 stiver for 2 eye-glasses, have lost 2 stiver at play in a silver 002 284 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. stamped king (2 stiibcr in ein Silberu gestempften Kbuig verspilt). I have paid 8 white pfenning for two bulls' horns. Then, on the Friday before St. Simon and St. Jude, I departed from Aachen, and travelled to Lowen, and went into the church, where there is the head of St. Anna. [A writer in the Kunstblatt, No. 62, 1830, points out that Hauer, the transcriber of the journal, probably mis-wrote Lowen for Diiren here. The latter town lies half-way between Aachen and Coin, and has a church in which the head of St. Anna is still preserved ; whereas Lowen lies some distance out of the way, and is not fortunate enough to possess any relics of that saint.] From thence we travelled, and arrived at Coin on the Monday before St. Simon and St. Jude. I had lodging and eating and drinking at Brussels with my Lords of Nurnberg, and they would take nothing for it. And I had the same at Aachen. During 3 weeks I had my meals with them, and they had me driven on to Coin, and would take nothing for that also. I have bought a tract of Luther's for 5 white pfenning, moreover 1 white pfenning for the Condemnation of Luther, the pious man [Probably a copy of the Bull of excommunication issued by Leo X. against Luther in 1520], and one white pfenning for a Paternoster, and 2 white pfenning for a girdle. Moreover 1 white pfenning for one pound of lights. I have changed a florin for living expenses. I have been obliged to let Herr Leon- hart Groland have my large bull's horn. Also I was obliged to let Hans Ebner have my large cedar-wood Paternoster. 6 white pfenning for a pair of shoes. I have given 2 white pfenning for a skull. 1 white pfenning for beer and bread. Moreover 2 white pfenning for ensspertele. I have given 2 messengers 4 white pfenning. I have given 2 white pfenning to Nicholas's daughter for lace (Werckspitzleiu). Item : 1 white pfenning to the messenger. I have given 2 florins' worth of art to Herr Ziegler Linhart. I have paid 2 white pfenning to the barber. Item : I have given 2 white pfenning for the picture to be opened which Maister Steffan of Coin has done. [This sentence of Durer's first threw a doubt on the name of the early master of the Cologne School who painted the lovely "Dombild" that is now preserved in the Cathedral. It had always been attributed to Meister JOURNAL. 285 Wilhelm, the earliest and best known master of the school, until this record in Durer's journal was observed, which at once raised a suspicion that possibly critics might be wrong in supposing it to be the work of Meister Wilhelm ; for, as Diirer lived so much nearer the time when the picture was painted, it was only natural to suppose that he must have been better acquainted with the name of the painter than writers writing after a lapse of centuries, and who had very little beyond tradition to guide them. Recent researches have indeed proved that such was the case, and the great Cologne altar-piece is now almost universally attributed to Meister Stephan, or Stephan Loethener, who was probably a pupil, or at all events a follower, of the earlier master, whose glory has been greatly shaded by this discovery of a later and greater master of the school. See Merlo, "Die Meister der Altcblnischen Schi'de!'] I have paid the messenger 2 white pfenning, and 2 white pfenning I have spent in drinking with comrades. I have drawn Gott Schalken's sister. I have given 1 white pfenning for a little tract [or treatise]. I have seen the princely dance and banquet which King Charles gave in the banqueting-house at Coin on the Sunday night after All Saints' day, in the year 1520. It was very costly. I have sketched for Stabius his coat-of-arms on wood. I have given the young Count of Coin a Melancholy, and the Duke Frederick the new Virgin-picture. I have drawn Niclaus Haller in charcoal. Item : 2 white pfenning to the boy at the gate. I have given 3 white pfenning for 2 small tracts. I have given 10 white pfenning for a cow's horn. I have been into the Church of St. Ursula at Coin, and have seen her grave, and her holy maidens, and all the great relics. I have drawn Forherwerger in charcoal. I have changed 1 florin for living expenses. I have given Niclaus's wife [this is his cousin Niclaus, whom, it will be remembered, he visited before at Cbln] 8 white pfenning when she invited me to dinner. I have given a stiver for 2 bits of art Item : Herr Hans Ebner and Herr Leonhard Groland have maintained me without taking anything from me in payment for 8 days at Brussels, 3 weeks at Aachen, and 14 days at Coin. On the Monday after Martinmas (Nov. 4) in the year 1520 I obtained my CONFIRMATIA from the Emperor, through my Lords of Nurnberg, with great trouble and labour. [This is the document by which Charles V. ratified the payment of the -86 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. pension of ioo florins yearly, granted to Durer by Maximilian for his faithful service to him and the Empire (see p. 151). The document is still preserved amongst the archives of Niirnberg, and is dated at Coin, Nov. 4, 1520.] I have given Niclas's daughter 7 white pfenning as Trinkgeld, and 1 florin to Niclas's wife, and moreover 1 orth to the daughter as a parting present, and then I set out from Coin. Dorfer once, Stabius once, my cousin Niclas once, and the old Wolffgang once, have invited me to dinner, and once more also I have been out to dinner. I have given Niclas's man (Knecht) an Eustachius for a Trinkgeld, also an orth to his little daughter, for they have had much trouble with me. I have given 1 florin for an ivory Death's head. Moreover 1 white pfenning for a twisted box. Moreover 7 white pfenning for a pair of shoes, and I have given Niclas's apprentice a Nemesis for Trinkgeld. And I departed early by the boat from Coin on the Wednesday after Martinmas I have given 6 white pfenning for- a pair of shoes, 4 white. pfenning to the messenger. From Coin I travelled down the Rhine to Suns (Zons). [The journal is now again for a little while a mere record of the names of the towns that Diirer passed through on his journey from Coin to Antwerp. The impatient reader can skip it if he please, but the weary translator must needs be faithful.] From Suns we went to Nans, from thence to Stain ; there we laid all day. I expended 6 white pfenning. After that we came to Diisseldorf, a town, and expended 2 white pfenning. From thence to Kaiserswerth, from thence to Duisberg, also a town, also two castles, Angrur and another called Ruhrort ; from thence to Arschor (Orsoy), a town ; from thence to Rheinberg, also a town ; there we spent the night, and expended 6 white pfenning. From thence I went to Rees, from thence to Emmerich, from thence we came to Thomas, and from thence to Nymwegen ; there we remained over night, and I spent 4 white pfenning. From Nymwegen we went to Thul [Thiel], from thence to Pust, &c. At Emmerich we laid to, and I spent there for a costly meal three white pfenning, and I drew there a goldsmith's workman, Peter Federmacher of Antwerp, and a portrait of a lady, and the cause of our lying still was that a great storm-wind over took us. Moreover I spent another 5 white pfenning, and I changed JOURNAL. 287 a florin for living expenses. Also I drew my host, and arrived only on the Sunday at Nymwegen. I have given 20 white pfenning to the skipper. Nymwegen is a fine town, and has a fine church, and a well-situated castle. From thence we went to Till ; there we left the Rhin [the Waal, the left branch of the Rhine], and travelled up the Maas to Terveeren, where the two towers are ; there we lay over night, and this day I spent 7 stiver. After that we travelled on Tuesday early to Pommel on the Maas ; there a great storm came on so that we were obliged to get peasants' horses, and to ride without saddles to Herzog-Pusch, and we spent 1 florin in riding. Pusch [Bois-le-Duc. German, Bosch] is a pretty town, and has an extraordinary beautiful church, and is very strong [strongly fortified. The Church of St. John, built in 13 12, is still a fine specimen of mediaeval architecture]. There I spent 10 stiver, although Meister Arnold paid my reckoning. [Arnold de Ber, a painter of Antwerp.] And the gold smiths came to me, and they showed me very much honour. After that, on the day of our Lady, we got up early and went through the very beautiful village of Oosterwyck. But we ate our breakfast at Tilborg, and spent there 4 white pfenning. After that we came to Barell (Baer), passed the night there, and spent 5 stiver, and the comrades (Gesellen) at the inn were all quarrelling with the landlord ; and we went on at night to Hog- straaten ; there we rested two hours, and set off again through Harsht for St. Leonartkirchen ; there we ate our breakfast, and spent 4 stiver. After that we came to Antwerp, and gave the driver 15 stiver, and it was on the Thursday after the Assumption of the Virgin. [It has been pointed out that it could not have been the Feast of the Assumption that Diirer here meant, for that feast is held in the Roman Church on the 15 th of August, but most probably it was the Presentation of the Virgin, which is celebrated on the 21st of November, and would therefore agree perfectly in time with the date of Durer's return to Antwerp.] And I have given a copper Passion to Jannen, the servant of Jobst's father-in-law. [Jobst Planckfelt, it will be remembered, was Durer's host at Antwerp. | And on the Thursday after our Lady's day, Assumiionis 1520 [or Presentation], I entered again into Jobst Planckfelt's house, and I have eaten jjjj times with him this time, and jj with my wife. I have changed 1 florin for living expenses, moreover one crown ; and during the 7 weeks that I have been away 288 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. my wife and the maid have spent 7 crowns in living, and of other things have bought 4 florins' worth. I have spent 4 stiver with comrades. 6 times I have dined with Tomasin. On St. Merten's day at Antwerp in the Cathedral my wife had her purse cut ; there were 2 florins in it. And the purse itself, and what more was in it, was also worth another florin, and there were some keys in it. Item: On the eve of St Catharine I gave my host ten gold crowns of my reckoning. [Probably the gold ducat of Holland, worth gs. $d. of our present money.] This time I have dined jj with the Portugal [agent]. Ruderigo has given me 6 Indian nuts, and I have given his boy 2 stiver for Trinkgeld. Item : I have paid 19 stiver for parchment. Item: I have changed two crowns for living expenses. I have received 8 florins altogether for two Adam and Eves, one Sea Monster [Mehnwunder, supposed to be the print now called the Amymone], j St. Jerome, j Knight on Horseback, j Nemesis, j Eustachius, j whole piece, moreover 17 etched pieces, 8 quarter sheets, 19 pieces of woodcut, 7 bad woodcuts, 2 books [probably Great Passions], and 10 Little Passion cuts. Item : I have given the 3 great books [Apocalypse], Life of the Virgin, and Great Passion for j ounce of fine solder. I have changed a Philipper for living expenses, and my wife has changed a florin. Item : There has been a whale thrown up on the coast of Zealand by a great storm and a high tide. It is more than a hundred fathoms long, and no one living in Zealand has ever seen one before that was a third part the size of this one ; and the fish cannot be moved off the land, and the people wish it away, for they fear the great smell it will make, for it is so big that it would take more than six months to cut it up and boil it down for oil. Item : The Chaplain Steffan has given me a cedar-wood Paternoster, and I have drawn his portrait in return. Item : I have given 4 stiver for furnace-brown and a small pair of snuffers. I have given 3 stiver for paper. I have drawn Felix kneeling, done with the pen in his own book. Felix has given me IOO oysters. I have given Herr Lasarus, the great man, an engraved St. Jerome, and the three large books. Ruderigo has given me some strong wine and some oysters. I have paid 7 white pfenning for black chalk. I have had Tomasin, Gerharde, Tomasin's daughter, her husband, Honing the glazier, Jobst and his wife, and Felix, to dinner with me ; it has cost 2 florins. Item : Tomasin has given me 4 ells of grey damask JOURNAL. 289 for a waistcoat. Moreover I have changed one Philipp's florin for living expenses. On the eve of St. Barbara [December 3] I rode out of Antwerp and went on to Pergn [Bergen-op-Zoom]. I have given 12 stiver for the hire of the horse, and have spent 1 florin 6 stiver. Item : I have bought at Bergen for my wife a Flemish head-gear of thin cloth, costing 1 florin 7 stiver. Moreover 6 stiver for 3 pair of shoes [2d. a pair ! No wonder they do not last long. He seems to be constantly buying shoes]. One stiver for eye-glasses ; moreover 6 stiver for an ivory button. I have given 2 stiver for Trinkgeld. I have drawn Jean de Has, his wife and his two daughters, with charcoal, and the maid and the old woman with pencil, in my little book (see p. 101). [Jan de Haes was a sculptor born at Metz.— F. V.] The houses at Bergen are very large and well- built. Bergen is an agreeable place in summer [but hardly in the middle of the winter, one would suppose], and there are two great markets held there during the year. And on the eve of Lady-day I went with my comrades into Zealand, and Bastian Imhof lent me 5 florins, and we lay the first night at anchor at sea, and it was very cold, and we had neither food nor drink. On the Saturday we came to Goes, and there I sketched a girl in the costume of the place. From thence we went to Erma, and I laid out 1 5 stiver for provisions. We sailed before sunset by a village, and saw only the points ofthe roofs projecting out of the water, and we sailed for the island of Wohlfartig [Walcheren], and for the little town of Sunge in another adjacent island. There were 7 islands, and Ernig, where I passed the night, is the largest. From thence we went to Middleburg, where I saw in the abbey the great picture that Johann de Abus [Mabuse] had done. The drawing is not so good as the painting. [This " great picture," the Descent from the Cross, is said to have been one of Mabuse's finest works. It was unfortunately destroyed in the burning of the Abbey of Middleburg in 1568.] After that we came to Fahr, where ships from all lands unload ; it is a fine town. But at Armuyden [a small town on the island of Walcheren] a great danger befell me; for just as we were going to land, and our ropes were thrown out, there came a large ship alongside of us and I was about to land, but there was such a press that I let every one land before me, so that nobody but I, Georg Kotzlcr, two old women, and r r 290 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. the skipper with one small boy were left in the ship. And when only I and the above-named persons were on board and could not get on shore, then the strong cable broke, and a strong wind came on, which drove our ship powerfully before it. Then we all cried loudly for help, but no one ventured to give it, and the wind beat us out again to sea. The skipper was in the greatest distress, and shouted loudly, for all his sailors had left the ship and it was unloaded. Then there was great anxiety and fear, for the wind was very great, and not more than 6 persons on board. But I spoke to the skipper and told him to take heart and put his trust in God and consider what there was to be done. Then he said he thought if we could manage to hoist the little sail he would try whether we could not get on. So with great difficulty, and working altogether, we got it half-way up and sailed on again ; and when those on the land saw this, and how we were able to help ourselves, they came and gave us assistance, so that we got safely to land. Middleburg is a good town, and has a very beautiful Town-house with a costly tower. There are also many things there of old art. There is an exceedingly costly and beautiful seat in the abbey, and a costly stone aisle, and a pretty parish church. And in other respects also the town is very rich in subjects for sketches (und sonst war die statt kostlich zu Konterfeyeii). Seeland is pretty and marvellous to see, on account of the water which is higher than the land. I have drawn my host at Ernii. Meister Hugo and Alexander Imhof and the Hirsh- vogel's servant Friedrich have each given me an Indian Unz [possibly the Spanish gold coin called an " ounce "] that they have won at play, and my host has given me some growing onions. And on the Monday we set out early in the ship again and made for Fahr, and from thence to Zurckse, where we thought to see the great fish, but we found the tide had taken it away again. And I have spent 2 florins for travelling expenses, and I have given two florins for a Kotzer,Q) 4 stiver for a feugen Kass,Q) and 3 stiver for carriage of goods; 6 stiver lost at play. And we came back again to Bergen. I have paid 10 stiver for an ivory comb. I have drawn Schnabhannen. I have drawn my host's son-in-law Clausen. I have given 2 florins less 5 stiver for a bit of pewter ; moreover 2 florins for a bad bit of pewter. Item : I have drawn the little Bernhart of Breszlen, George Kotzler, and the French man ; and each of them has paid me at Bergen 1 florin. Jan de Has's son-in-law has paid me a horn guilder for his portrait, and likewise fOURNAL. 291 the crayons and 1 florin. Moreover I have given 4 florins less 10 stiver for 2 coverlets. I have drawn Niclas Soilir. And this is the number of times that I have eaten in Bergen since I came back from Zealand, jjjjjjjjj. And again jjjj stiver. I have given the driver 3 stiver, and have spent vjjj stiver on living. On the Friday after St. Lucia [Dec. 14], 1520, I returned to Ant werp to the house of Jobst Planckfelt. And this time what I eat in his house is paid for, and my wife is paid for. Item : Herr Lazarus von Rafensburg has given me in return for the three books [Apocalypse, Life of the Virgin, and Great Passion] that I presented to him a scale of a large fish, 5 snail shells, 4 silver medals, 5 copper ones, 2 dried fish, a piece of white coral, 4 Roren (?) arrows, and a piece of white coral. I have changed 1 florin for living. Item : Moreover one crown. This time I have dined by myself jjjjjjjjj times. Item : The Portuguese Factor has given me a brown velvet doublet and a box of good electuary. I have given his boy 3 stiver by way of recompense. I have given 1 horn florin for 2 panels (Taffelein) [for painting on], but I have had 6 stiver given me back again. I have given 4 gold guilders for a monkey, and 14 stiver for 5 fish. I have given 2 stiver for 2 treatises. I have given 2 stiver to the messenger. I have presented Lazarus Rafespurg with a like ness (Conterfet angesicht) [probably a Head of Christ] ; this with the panel cost 6 stiver. And above this I have given him 8 large copper engravings, 8 half sheets, a Copper Passion, and other engravings and woodcuts, worth in all 4 florins. Moreover I have changed a Philipp's guilder for living expenses. I have paid 6 stiver for panels, and I have drawn the servant of the Portuguese in charcoal. And all this I have given away in the New Year. «-[He has forgotten to give us any intimation when the New Year began. The last date was the Friday after St. Lucia, and St. Lucia was celebrated on the 14th of December in 1520. It is now, we must bear in mind, 1521 in the journal, but no ascertainable date occurs for a long time.] I have changed 1 florin for living expenses, moreover 2 stiver for Trinkgeld ; and I have given Bernhart Stecher a whole impression [of engravings]. Item: I have bought 31 stivers worth of wood. I have drawn Bernhard Pombelly and the daughter of Sebastian the P P 2 292 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. Procurator. I have changed i florin for living. I have squandered 3 stiver. I have presented Herr Wolff von Rogendorff with a Copper and a Wood Passion. Gerhard Pombellin has given me a printed Turkish cloth, and Herr von Rogendorff has given me vii ells of Brabant velvet, so I have given his man a Philipp's guilder for Trink geld, and I have spent 3 stiver at different times. I have given 4 stiver for Trinkgeld. I have drawn the new Factor in charcoal. I have given 6 stiver for a panel. I have dined with the Portuguese jjjjjjjj, with the Treasurer j, with Tomasin jjjjjjjjjj. I have given 4 stiver for Trinkgeld. With Lazarus Rafenspurger j [Ravensburg], Wolff von Rogendorff j, Bernhard Stecher j, Hanolt Meyting j, Caspar Lewenter j. [Diirer's circle of acquaintance in Antwerp is evidently enlarging. Several of these are new names. But judging from the number of times that he dines with him, the Italian Tomasin still remains his favourite friend.] I have given 3 stiver to the man whom I have drawn. [A model, probably, who sat to him.] Moreover I have given the boy 2 stiver. I have given 4 florins for flax. [Possibly for his wife to spin. The good old spinning days were not then over.] I have made 4 florins by art. I have changed a crown for living expenses. Item : I have given 4 stiver to the furrier ; moreover 2 stiver. I have lost 4 stiver at play, and have squandered 6 stiver. [It is amusing to note how conscientiously he puts down these sums.] I have paid 18 stiver for rosin and for three pair of knives. I have paid 2 florins for meals with Jobst. I have lost four stiver at play, and have paid 6 stiver to the furrier. I have given Maister Jacob 2 engraved St. Jeromes. Lost 2 more stiver at play. I have changed a crown for living expenses. I have lost j stiver at play. I have given Tomasin's maid 3 pair of knives [3 Paar-messer, a knife with three blades?] costing 5 stiver. I have made 29 stiver by art. Ruderigo has given me a musk ball just as it is cut off from the civet-cat, also a boxful of electuary, and a large box of sugar. So I have given his boy 5 stiver for Trinkgeld. Item : Lost 2 stiver at play. I have drawn Jobst's wife in charcoal. I have made 4 florins 5 stiver by three Tiichlein [water-colour drawings on linen]. Again I have changed another 2 florins for living. I have lost 2 stiver at play. My wife has given 1 florin to the child that has just been born, moreover 4 stiver in the lying-in chamber. [It was, it seems, the custom in Antweq. at that time to give a new-born child a present of money as well as a foe of 4 stiver to the nurse.— F. V.] Item : I have JOURNAL. 293 changed 1 crown for living expenses, squandered 4 stiver, lost 2 stiver at play, and given 4 stiver to the messenger. I have given Maister Dietrich, the glass-painter, an Apocalypse and the 6 Knotn. [The " 6 Knotn " mentioned here are thought by Hausmann to mean six patterns for embroidery or fine tracery-work that Diirer executed. Perhaps they were intended for patterns on glass.] I have paid 40 stiver for flax. I have lost 8 stiver at play. I have given the little Factor of Por tugal, Signor Franzisko, my water-colour drawing (Tiichlein) of a child. It is worth 10 florins. I have given Dr. Loffen of Antwerp the 4 books and St. Jerome in copper. Item : I have done the arms of Stabius, Jobst Planckfelt, and another man. I have drawn Tomasin's son and daughter in pencil. I have painted a portrait of a duke on a panel in oil-colour. I have made 5 stiver by art. [The sums that he makes seem ridiculously small compared with the worth of what he gives away.] Ruderigo Scribande of Portugal has given me 2 Calecut cloths, one of them silk, and he has given me an ornamental cap, and a bough of the cedar-tree, and a Kriinkrug mit Mirabulon (?), in all worth 10 florins; and I gave the boy 5 stiver for Trinkgeld, and 2 stiver for a pencil. I have done a sketch for some mummeries for the Fiigger's Factor, who has given me an angel. [The old English gold coin, with an angel impressed on it, in memory of Pope Gregory's celebrated compliment. It was worth in England about ten shillings, and would seem to have been also current in the Netherlands.] I have changed 1 florin for living expenses. I have given 8 stiver for 2 small powder horns. I have lost 3 stiver at play. I have changed the angel for living expenses. Item : I have done Tomasin two whole sheets full of mummeries. I have done a good Veronica likeness in oil-colour; it is worth 12 florins, and this I have presented to Francisco, Factor of Portugal. After that I painted it again in oil-colours, and this was better than the first, and I gave it to the Factor Brandan von Portugal. The first gave the maid [Susannah, who took the picture] I Philipp's florin for Trinkgeld, and after that for the Veronica 1 florin. And the Factor Branden gave her 1 florin. I have given Peter 8 stiver for two coverings. I have changed an angel for living expenses. Item : On Shrove Tuesday early the goldsmiths invited me and my wife to dinner. There were many distinguished people assembled, and we had an extremely costly meal, and they did me exceeding much honour ; and in the evening the senior magistrate (Der alt 294 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. Amtmann) of the town invited me, and gave me a costly meal, and showed me much honour. And there came in many strange masks. [It was of course Carnival time.] I have drawn Flores, Frau Margaret's organist, in charcoal. On the Monday in Shrovetide N. Lupes invited me to the great banquet, which lasted until 2 o'clock, and was very costly. [Herr Lopez was the ambassador of the King of Por tugal. — F. V.] Item : Herr Lorenz Stark has given me a Spanish fur coat. And at the above-mentioned feast there were many very costly masks, particularly Tomasin and Branbell. I have won 2 florins at play. [This is the first record of his winning anything, and this time he wins enough to pay for all his previous losses ; but his gains evidently troubled his conscience, for we find in the next line or so that he seeks to recom pense the loser by taking his portrait.] I have given 14 stiver for a basket of raisins. I have drawn Bernhart von Castell, from whom I won the money, in charcoal. Item : Tomasin's brother Gerhard has given me 4 Brabant ells of the best black satin, and he has given me a large box of candied citron, and I have given the maid 3 stiver for Trinkgeld. I have given 13 stiver for wood, 2 stiver for varnish. I have drawn the Procurator's daughter in pencil. I have changed an angel for living expenses. I have drawn in black chalk the good marble-cutter Maister Jan, who, like Christoph Kohler, has studied in Italy. I have changed a guilder for living. I have paid 3 florins to Jan Turcken for Italian art. I have given 12 ducats worth of art for one ounce of good ultramarine. [In his letters to Heller, Diirer, it will be remembered, frequently alludes to the expense of this colour.] I have made 3 florins by the Little Passion. I have sold two sketches and 4 books of Scheufelein's for 3 florins. [Hans Schauffelein, a Nurnberg master, and it is supposed a pupil of Diirer's.] I have given two florins for 2 Calecut salt-cellars made of ivory. I have made 2 florins by art. I have changed 1 florin for living expenses. Item: Roger of Gelern has presented me with a snail- shell, and a silver and gold coin worth an orth; and I have pre sented him in return with the 3 large books and the engraved horseman [probably the plate known as the Great Courier]. I have made eleven stiver by art. I have given 2 Philipp's florins for St. Peter and St. Paul, which I shall present to the Kolerin. JOURNAL. 295 Item : Ruderigo has given me two boxes with monk's electuary and all kinds of sugars, and I have given 5 stiver for Trinkgeld. I have given 16 stiver for a box. Lazarus Rafensburg has given me a sugar-loaf, so I have given his boy a stiver. I have paid 6 stiver for wood. Item : I have dined once with the Frenchman, twice with Hirschvogel, and once with Maister Peter the Secretary [this Maister Peter is the learned Petrus ^gidius, the friend of Erasmus], where Erasmus of Rotterdam also dined. I have given 1 stiver to be allowed to go up the tower at Antwerp, which is said to be higher than that of Strasburg. I saw over the whole town from it, which was very agreeable. I have given 1 stiver for Ad.Q) I have changed an angel. Item : The Portuguese Factor Branden has given me two large white sugar-loaves, a dish full of sugar-candy, and two green pots of preserved sugar, and 4 ells of black satin ; so I have given his man 10 stiver for Trinkgeld. [One may judge from the frequent presents of sugar-loaves and sweet meats that Diirer receives from his Portuguese friends that the new Portuguese and Spanish sugar plantations in America and the West Indies were in a flourishing condition. No doubt cane-sugar (if known at all) was a rare luxury in Nurnberg at this period, but it appears to have been pretty common in Spain and the Netherlands. It was not introduced into England until much later.] I have twice taken the portrait in pencil of the beautiful maiden for Gerhardt. [One would like to see Durer's portraits of " the beautiful maiden," and learn what his idea of female beauty was. He did not gene rally draw pretty women.] Moreover I have changed an angel for living expenses. I have made 4 florins by art. I have given 10 stiver for a box for Ruderigo. I have dined with the Treasurer Lorenz Starck, who has given me an ivory pipe and a very pretty piece of porcelain ; and I have given him a whole impression (ein ganzen Truck). Moreover I have given a whole impression to the Herr Adrian of the town of Antwerp, orator. I have changed a Philipp's gulden for living expenses. I have presented (Verehrt) to the great rich guild of merchants in Antwerp a Sitting St. Nicholas, for which they have given me three Philipp's gulden. [Probably destroyed during the revo lutionary wars in the Netherlands. I cannot find mention of it in any catalogue.] 296 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. I have given to Peter the old model of St. Jerome, and 4 florins over and above, for a model for the Treasurer's portrait (Angesicht) [perhaps a head of Christ]. Item : I have given eleven stiver for wood. Moreover I have changed a Philipp's guilder for living expenses, and have given 4 stiver for a gimlet. I have given 3 stiver for 3 tubes. I have given up my baggage to be taken to Nurnberg by Jacob and Endres Hessler, and they are to have 2 florins the Nurnberg hundred-weight, and they are to deliver it to Hans Imhoff the Elder, and I have given 2 florins upon it, and this took place on the Sunday of St. Jude in the year 1521. Ruderigo has given me 6 large Indian nuts, a very pretty piece of coral, and two large Portuguese guilders, one of them weighing as much as ten ducats [perhaps Brazilian dollars, worth about 5 shillings each], and I have given his boy for Trinkgeld 15 stiver. I have bought a loadstone for 16 stiver. Moreover I have changed an angel for living expenses. I have given 5 stiver for packing. I have sent Maister Hugo of Brussels an engraved Passion and some other pieces for his little porphyr grinding-stone. I have done a sketch for Tomasin in half colours, according to which he is going to have his house painted. I have carefully painted (mit fleiss) in oil-colours a St. Jerome, and have given it to Ruderigo of Portugal, who has given Susanna a ducat for Trinkgeld. I have changed a Philipp's guilder for living expenses, and have given my father confessor 10 stiver. I have given 4 stiver for a little turtle. I have dined with Herr Gilbert, who has pre sented me with a small shield made out of the skin of a fish, and a pair of boxing-gloves. I have given Peter 2 stiver. I have given 10 stiver for the fins of a fish, and have given 3 stiver for Trinkgeld. I have drawn Cornelius, the Antwerp Secretary, very excellently in chalk. I have given 3 florins 16 stiver for 5 silk girdles that I mean to make presents of. Moreover 20 stiver for some lace bordering. The six pieces of lace bordering I have given to Caspar Niitzel's wife, to Hans Imhofs wife, to Strauber's wife two, to Spengler's wife, and to Loffelholz's wife ; and to each of these ladies I have given besides a good pair of gloves. [The names that Diirer mentions here are those of distinguished citizens of Nurnberg; with some of them the reader is already acquainted. His presents to the ladies prove that he must have been on intimate social terms with these families. He either means that he has bought these things to JOURNAL. 297 take back with him to Nurnberg as presents, or that he has sent them home by the carrier.] To Pirkheimer I have given a large cap (Barett, or as he spells it, Paret), a costly buffalo inkstand, a silver Emperor [probably a medal or statue of Maximilian in silver], I pound of Pensanien [?], and three sugar- canes. To Caspar Nutzel I have given a large elk's foot and 10 large fir-cones. To Jacob Muffel I have given a scarlet neckerchief. To Hans Imhoff 's child a scarlet ornamental cap and a fir-cone. To the shop keeper's wife (Kramerin) 4 ells of Zendeldort [?], 4 florins. To Lochinger's wife 1 ell of Zendeldort, 1 florin. To each of the Spenglers a waistcoat and 3 beautiful horns. To Herr Hieronymus Holzschuher an exceedingly large horn. [These probably are the horns that Diirer records having bought some pages back. One wondered then what he could want with so many; they may possibly have been not literally horns of animals, but horn vessels, drinking cups, &c. for domestic use ; for although glass had come into use, the Horner's was still a very important trade in the 16th century.] I have dined twice with the Factor. I have dined with Maister Arion the Antwerp secretary [Adrian Herbout, Pensionaris of Antwerp in 1506. — F. V.], who has given me the little painting that Maister Joachim [Joachim Patenir] has done. It is Lot and his daughters. [A painting by Diirer of this subject is mentioned in most of the catalogues of his works. Heller quotes it as being in his time in the castle of Gera, and it seems probable that it formerly formed part of the Imhof collection. It appears to me however not at all unlikely that this little painting of Patenir's, found, after Durer's death perhaps, amongst his own works, might have got classed with these, and Durer's monogram and the date (it is dated 15 n) afterwards added by some clever possessor who desired to prove it Durer's work. It seems a very unlikely subject for him to have chosen, and in the inventory of the Imhof collection it is described as the Burning of Sodom and Gomorrah, which looks as if the landscape and not the figures formed the chief motive of the piece, which would most likely be the case if Patenir painted it.] Moreover I have made 12 florins by art. Moreover I have sold 1 florin's worth to Hans Grum. Roger of Gelern has given me a bit of sandal wood, and I have given his boy a stiver. Item: I have taken Bernhart von Reszen's portrait in oil-colours, who has given me 8 florins for it, and to my wife he has given a crown, and to Susanna a guilder. I have given 3 stiver for a Swiss mug and 2 stiver for the saucer. 0 Q 2 98 LIFE OF ALB RE CUT D URER. Moreover 3 stiver for a covering. Moreover 4 stiver to the Father Confessor. I have changed an angel for living expenses. I have made 4 florins 10 stiver by art. I have given 3 stiver for unguents. I have given 12 half-stiver for wood. [Surely he might have reckoned this as 6 stiver. Perhaps, like children, he esteems 12 half-pence more highly than sixpence.] I have spent 1 florin for living expenses. I have given 1 florin for 14 pieces of French wood. I have given Ambrose Hochstetten [a rich Augsburg merchant. — F. V.] a Life of the Virgin, and he has given me his design for a ship. Item : Ruderigo has given my wife a little ring. It is worth more than 5 florins (ist bcsser dann 5 fl!). I have changed a florin for living expenses. I have taken the portrait of the Factor Brand's clerk (Scriban) in charcoal. I have likewise drawn in pencil his Morin [?]. I have drawn Roderigo on a large sheet of paper black and white. I have given 16 florins for a piece of camlet, it contains 24 ells and will cost a stiver to carry it home. I have given 2 stiver for gloves. I have drawn Lucas of Danzgen in charcoal. He has given me a florin for it and a piece of sandal wood. Item : On the Saturday after Easter I set out from Antwerp to go to Bruges with Hans Liiber and with Maister Jan Ploos, a good painter of Bruges, and we crossed the Scheldt and came to Bevern, a large village ; from thence to Prasten, also a large village ; from thence we travelled through several villages and came to the fine large village where there are so many rich agriculturists. [This part of the country is still, I believe, celebrated for its good farming.] There we ate our breakfast, and from thence we travelled to the rich Abbey of Pol, and from thence through Kaltbrunnen, a pretty village. From thence through the great long village of Kahlb ; from thence to Erdvelde, where we passed the night. We were up early on Sunday and travelled to Herfehlt, a small town ; from thence we went to Knolo (Eckloo), that is a very large and important (machtig) village ; it is paved, and has a Public Place; there we ate our breakfast. From thence we went on to Valdegen, and after that through other villages until we came to Bruges, which is a splendid and beautiful town. And I have spent in travelling and in other ways 20 stiver and 1. And when we arrived at Bruges Jan Plos took me home with him, and that same night he arranged a costly meal for me and invited several people to give me pleasure. Another day Marx the goldsmith invited me and gave me a costly meal, JOURNAL. 299 and had a number of people to meet me. After that they took me into the Emperor's house, which is large and costly. There I saw Rudiger's painted chapel and a painting of a great old Master, for the opening of which I gave 1 stiver. [Rudiger was, as we have seen, Roger Van der Weyden the Elder, and very likely the "great old Master" was none other than Hubert Van Eyck himself, who might have been reckoned old as well as great even in the sixt?enth century. His works then, perhaps, were not quite so rare as they are now ; the upper portion of the Mystic Lamb of St. Bavon being the only really authentic painting by his hand of which Art can now boast.] After that I bought 3 ivory combs for 30 stiver. Afterwards we went to St. Jacob's Church and saw the costly paintings of Rudiger and Hugo. They were both great masters. [" Hugo " is Hugo van der Goes, called by Vasari, Hugo d'Anversa. He died in 1478. Only two or three authentic pictures by him are now known.] After that I saw the alabaster figure of the Virgin and Child that Michael Angelo of Rome has done. [Considerable doubt has been cast by critics on the genuineness of this work, which is still preserved in the Church of Notre Dame at Bruges. It says something for it, however, that Albrecht Diirer, a contemporary of Michael Angelo, believed it to be by him.] After that we went into a number of churches, and they showed me all the good paintings, of which there are a great number (ein iiber- schwahl) ; and when I had seen Johann's and all the other things [probably meaning Jan van Eyck's paintings and those of other masters] we came at last into the Painters' Chapel, where there are many good things. After that they prepared a banquet for me. And from thence I went with them to their guild, where many honourable folk, gold smiths, painters, and merchants, were assembled, and they made me sup with them, and gave me presents, and did me great honour. And the two brothers Jacob and Peter were there, and the Rath gave me 12 measures of wine, and the whole assembly, more than 60 persons, accompanied me home with torches. Also I have seen in their Archery-Court the large vat upon which they dine ; it is 19 feet in length, 7 feet high, and 7 broad. Then on Tuesday early we left Bruges, but before this I drew Jan Ploos in pencil, and gave his wife 10 stiver as a parting Trinkgeld. Then we travelled, on to Orscheln, where we ate our breakfast, Q Q 2 300 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. and on the way we passed through 3 villages, and then we went on to Ghent, and on the way there also we passed through 3 villages; and I gave the driver 4 stiver, and also spent 4 stiver on the way. And when I arrived at Ghent the chief (Dechant) of the painters met me, and he brought with him all the principal painters of the town, and they showed me great honour, and received me in very splendid style, and they assured me of their good-will and service, and I supped that evening with them. On Wednesday early they took me to St. John's Tower [the Beffroi], from which I saw over all the great and wonderful town. After that I saw Johann's picture. It is a very rich (iiberkostlich) and grandly conceived (hochverstdndig) painting, and particularly Eve, the Virgin Mary, and God the Father are excellent. [The painting which thus called forth Diirer'9 admiration was the great Van Eyck altar-piece of the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, of which the central and upper portions still remain in the Church of St. Bavon at Ghent. It is note worthy that Diirer especially praises the figures of Eve, God the Father, and the Virgin Mary, which were the work of Hubert Van Eyck, the elder brother, who died before the noble work he had designed was completed.] After that I saw the Lions, and drew one of them in pencil. [Hollar has engraved this lion. Durer's drawing of it is now in the Albert Collection.] And I saw also the bridge where people are beheaded, and the two statues set up in memory of the son who beheaded his father. [The legend to which this refers is the following: — Two men, father and son, were sentenced to be beheaded, but the king agreed to pardon the one who would act as executioner to the other. The father refused, but the unnatural son consented ; but as he was brandishing the axe to strike his father's neck it fell upon his own, and killed him instead of his father. These statues, which fonnerly stood on the Bruggen van de Leye at Ghent, disappeared about 1793.] Ghent is a beautiful and wonderful town, and 4 great waters flow through it. I have given the sacristan and the man who showed the lions 3 stiver for Trinkgeld. And I have besides seen many other very strange things at Ghent, and the painters with their Dechant have never left me ; and I have eaten morning and night with them, and they have paid for everything, and have been very friendly with me. But I gave 5 stiver on leaving the inn as Trinkgeld. I set out early on Thursday from Ghent, and came through several villages to an inn called the Swan, where we ate our breakfast. After that we travelled on through a pretty JOURNAL. 30 r village, and came to Antwerp ; and I had spent in travelling (verfahreu) 8 stiver. I have made 4 florins by art. I have changed 1 florin for living expenses. I have drawn Hans Lieber of Uim in charcoal. He wanted to pay me a florin for it, but I would not take it I have given vii stiver for wood, and 1 stiver for bringing it. I have changed a florin for living expenses. Item : In the third week after Easter a hot fever attacked me with great faintness, discomfort, and headache. And when I was in Zealand some time back, a wonderful illness came upon me, which I had never heard of any one having before, and this illness I have still. I have given 6 stiver for a box. Item : The monk has bound two books for me for the art things that I have given him. I have given 10 florin 8 stiver for a piece of damask for my father-in-law, and two mantles for my wife. I have given the doctor 8 stiver, and the apothecary 3. And I have changed a florin for living expenses ; I have squandered 3 stiver with comrades ; I have given 10 stiver to the doctor. Item : Ruderigo has sent me a great deal of preserved sugar in my illness. I have given the boy 4 stiver for Trinkgeld. I have taken Maister Joachim's portrait in pencil [Joachim Patenir], and I have done a head of Christ (A.ngesicht) for him besides. I have changed a crown for living expenses, and I have likewise changed a florin for living expenses. Item : 6 stiver to the doctor. Item : 7 stiver to the apothecary. Item : I have given a waggoner named Hans Rabner 13 stiver for packing up the three packages that I am sending off from Antwerp to Nurnberg, and I have paid the waggoner who takes them 1 florin down. And I have made an agreement that they shall be taken from Antwerp to Nurnberg for 1 florin 1 orth the hundredweight, and the packages shall be delivered to Herr Hans Imhof the Elder. I have paid the doctor, the apothecary, and the barber, 14 stiver. [It is very sad that he should have had to pay so many stiver for doctors' bills. He never quite recovered from this " wonderful illness," probably a low fever caught in the marshy lands of Zealand, and attacking an already weak frame. His illness does not seem to have obliged him to keep in bed, however ; for he still continues to make purchases, and very soon after this we find him at Joachim Patenir's wedding.] I have given Maister Jacob the physician [he says "Artzt" here and " doctor " always before, so probably he had two medical attendants] 302 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. 4 florins' worth of art. I have drawn Thomas Polonius of Rome [the same who gave him " Raphael things "] in charcoal. Item : My camlet coat takes 21 Brabant ells, which are three little fingers longer than the Nurnberg ells. So I have bought some black Spanish Fahl [?] for it, costing 3 stiver, and these come to 34, making 10 florin 2 stiver. And I have given the furrier for making it 1 florin, and 2 ells of velvet for bordering comes to 5 florins. Item : For silk, cords, and fastenings, 34 stiver. Item : For the tailor's wages, 30 stiver. Item : The camlet of which the coat is made cost 14 florins, and the boy 5 stiver for Trinkgeld. [What an extravagance !] From this time I add up my accounts afresh. But I have paid the doctor 6 stiver. Item : I have made 53 stiver by art, and have taken them for living expenses. Item : On the Sunday before Cross week Maister Joachim invited me to his wedding, and they all showed me much respect; and I saw two very pretty plays there, particularly the first, which was very pious and clerical. Moreover I have given the doctor 6 stiver. I have changed 1 florin for living expenses. On the Sunday after our Lord's Ascension Maister Dietrich the glass- painter at Antwerp invited me and several people to meet me, and amongst them Alexander the goldsmith, a very rich man ; and we had a costly meal, and they did me much honour. I have drawn Master Marx the goldsmith in charcoal, who lives at Bruges. I have given 36 stiver for a wide cap ( Piret). I have given Paul Jager [Durer spells this name Pall Geger] 1 florin for taking my box to Niirn berg, and 4 stiver for the letter. I have drawn Ambrose Hochstetter [a rich Augsburg merchant. — F. V] in charcoal, and have dined with him. I have dined at least 6 times with Tomasin. [Tomasin has come into the journal again of late. It seemed at one time as though Diirer was forgetting him amongst all his later friends.] I have given 3 stiver for a wooden dish and plate. I have given the apothecary 12 stiver. I have given away two Lives of the Virgin — one to the foreign physician, the other to Marx's man-servant. And I have given the doctor 8 stiver. 4 stiver I have given for an old cap with ornaments, 4 stiver lost at play. I have given 2 florin for a new cap. I have changed the first cap, for it was clumsy-looking, and I have given in addition 6 stiver for another. I have taken a Duke's portrait in oils. I have also taken the Treasurer Lorenz Stark's portrait in oils, very correctly and well ; it is worth 25 florins. I made him a present of it, but he JOURNAL. 303 gave me against it 20 florin, and 1 florin to Susanna for Trinkgeld. [M. Otto Mundler considers this portrait to be identical with one now in the Royal Gallery at Madrid. He says it is one of Diirer's most admirable works. " The acme of perfection."] Item : I have taken my host's portrait very correctly and diligently in oils. And his wife I have likewise painted again in oils. [Strangely into the midst of these little personal details of payments, presents, and purchases, there now flashes a ray of world-history which still has interest for us even at this distance of time. Every one now knows how Luther, on his way back from the Diet of Worms, travelling under the safe- conduct of the Emperor, was waylaid by his friends, prompted by Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony, and carried off to the safe obscurity of the Castle of Wartburg, where he remained in peace for a time, out of reach of the violence of his enemies — of his human enemies, that is to say, Duke Georges and others — for his greatest enemy, the devil, did not leave him alone even there, as witness the blot on the wall in the room where Luther threw the ink stand at his head. It is curious to note how the news of Luther's friendly capture, or base betrayal, as it was then generally thought to be, struck his friends and contemporaries. Diirer, who, as we know, had decided Pro testant sympathies, although he appears always to have remained a member of the Catholic Church, writes about it as follows.] Item: On the Friday before Whitsuntide, in the year 1521, the report reached me at Antwerp that Martin Luther had been treach erously taken prisoner, for the herald of the Emperor Charles, to whose care he was committed under the Imperial safe-conduct, on arriving at an unfriendly place near Eisenach, rode off, saying that he dared stay no longer with him. Immediately 10 horsemen appeared, who treacherously carried off the pious man sold into their hands. He was a man enlightened by the Holy Ghost, and a follower of the true Christian faith. Whether he lives still, or whether his enemies have murdered him, I know not, but he has suffered much for Christ's truth, and because he has rebuked the unchristian Papacy which strives against the freedom of Christ with its heavy burdens of human laws, and for this we are robbed of the price of our blood and sweat, that it may be expended shamefully by idle, lascivious people, whilst thirsty and sick men perish of hunger ; and, above all, this is most grievous to me, that God will perhaps suffer us to 3o4 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. remain under their false blind teaching which the men, whom they call the Fathers, have invented and set down, whereby the precious Word is in many places falsely explained or not set forth at all. O God of heaven, have mercy on us ! O Lord Jesus Christ, pray for thy people, redeem us in thy right time, keep us in the true Christian faith, collect thy far-separated sheep by thy voice, heard in thy Holy Word ! help us to recognise thy voice so that we may not follow any device (Schwigeln) of man's invention. And in order that we may not turn away from thee, Lord Jesus Christ, call together again the sheep of thy fold of whom part are still to be found in the Romish Church, with others amongst the Indians, Muscovites, Russians, and Greeks, who through the burdens and avarice of the Papacy have been separated from us. O God, redeem thy poor people who are constrained by means of great torments to follow men's ordinances, none of which they would willingly observe, and thus constantly sin against their consciences by embracing them ! Never were any people so horribly burdened with ordinances as us poor people by the Romish See ; we who, redeemed by thy blood, ought to be free Christians. O almighty, heavenly Father, pour into our hearts, through thy Son Jesus Christ, such light that we may recognise that messenger whom we ought to obey, so that we may put aside the burdens of the others with a safe conscience, and serve thee, the Eternal Father, with happy, joyful hearts ; and in place of this man, who has written clearer than any other has done for 140 years, and to whom Thou hast given such a large amount of thy Holy Spirit, we pray Thee, O heavenly Father, that Thou wilt again give thy Holy Spirit to one who will again assemble thy Christian Church from all parts of the world, so that we may live again in a Christian manner, and that Turks, heathens, and Hindoos, and all unbelievers, seeing our good works, may be converted and accept the Christian faith. But, Lord, remember ere Thou judgest how thy Son Jesus Christ was made to suffer death of the priests and rose again from the dead, and afterwards ascended into heaven ; and this fate has also in like manner overtaken thy follower Martin Luther, whom the Pope treacherously betrayed and took away his life, whom Thou wilt quicken. And as after my Lord was crucified Jerusalem was destroyed, so wilt Thou now, after this one has been taken, destroy the power JOURNAL. 305 of the Papal chair. 0 Lord, give unto us that New Jerusalem that shall come down from heaven, whereof the Apocalypse writes ; the holy clear Gospel that is not darkened by human doctrine. This may every one see who reads Martin Luther's books, how his teaching sets forth clearly and transparently the holy Gospels; therefore his books are to be held in much honour, and not to be burnt. It would be better indeed to cast his adversaries into the fire, with all their opinions, who would make gods of men, and always oppose the truth. [Diirer seems to have greatly appreciated the clearness of Luther's writings, for Melanchthon tells us that he used to say that " there was this difference between Luther's writings and those of other theologians ; that in reading three or four sentences of the first page of Luther's writings he could always tell what to look for in the entire work, whereas in other writers, after reading the whole book, he had to think and ask himself minutely what the author meant to express."] O God, is Luther dead ? Who will henceforth explain to us so clearly the holy Gospel ? Alas ! what might he not still have written for us during the next 10 or 20 years ? Oh, all pious Chris tian men, bewail with me this God-inspired man, and pray to God to send us another enlightened teacher ! O Erasmus of Rotterdam, where dost thou remain ? Behold how the unjust tyranny of this world's might and the powers of darkness prevail ! Hear, thou knight of Christ ; ride forth in the name of the Lord, defend the truth, attain the martyr's crown ; thou art already an old mannikin (Man- niken), and I have heard thee say that thou givest thyself only two years longer in which thou wilt still be fit for work. Employ these well, then, in the cause of the Gospel and the true Christian faith. Lift up thy voice, and so shall not the gates of hell (the See of Rome), as Christ saith, prevail against thee. And although, like thy master Christ, thou hast to suffer shame on earth, and even die a short time sooner than thou otherwise might, yet wilt thou pass the sooner from death unto life, and be glorified through Christ. For if thou drinkest of the cup of which He drank, so wilt thou reign with Him, and judge justly those who have not acted righ teously. O Erasmus, hold to this, and put thy boast in the Lord, as it stands written in David, for thou canst do this, and, in truth, thou mayst prevail to fell this Goliath ; for God will uphold His R R 306 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. holy Christian 'Church according to His divine will. May He give us eternal bliss, who is God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, one eternal God. Amen. [But Erasmus, as is well known, far from riding forth as a knight of Christ in the cause of Protestantism, or slaying the Goliath of Rome, as Diirer imagined him capable of doing, chose to remain in safety beneath the shadow of the Romish Church. He had no taste for the martyr's crown that Diirer would have fain set on his head, but maintained a philosophical mean between both parties. He wrote, it is true, bitterly enough against the abuses of the Papacy, but he likewise saw and exposed the weaknesses of the Protestant party ; indeed, he seems to have seen too deeply and clearly into the questions at dispute in his day to adopt any particular side, and he was therefore reckoned an enemy by Catholics and Protestants alike. Luther once, in his violent manner, called him "an enemy of all religions;" and one can well understand how a man of Luther's temperament would misinterpret a nature like that of Erasmus ; yet these two men both worked towards the same end, and perhaps the sarcasms of Erasmus contributed as much to the cause of Reform as the fierce denunciations of Luther. Diirer, it is evident, had no great love for the philosopher of Rotterdam ; and the inducement he holds forth for him, to lay claim to the honour of martyrdom, is certainly not a very complimentary one — being already " an old mannikin," and not of much more use in the world, he might as well suffer death for the truth's sake, as die of old age : so Diirer thought, but not so Erasmus, who, instead of two, lived fifteen years longer, and wrote an epitaph in "his little book" on Diirer, an honour that he probably thought might have consoled the artist for dying.] Oh, all ye Christian men, pray to God for help, for His judg ment draws nigh, and His righteousness shall be made plain. Then we shall see the blood of the innocent, which popes, bishops, and monks have spilt, rise up in judgment and condemn them. (Apocal.) And these are the souls of the slain that lie under the altar of God and cry for vengeance, to which. the voice of God replies, Fill up the measure of the innocent who are slain, then will I judge. [After having thus given vent to his excited feelings, Durer continues his journal in the ordinary manner.] And I have changed i florin for living expenses ; I have given the doctor 8 stiver. Item : I have dined twice with Ruderigo ; I have dined with the rich Canon ; I have changed a florin for living expenses ; JOURNAL. 307 I have entertained Maister Conrad the sculptor of Mecheln during the Whitsuntide holidays. I have given 18 stiver for some Italian art, and 6 stiver to the doctor. I have heightened [with white] 4 St. Christophers on grey paper for Maister Joachim. On the last day of Whitsuntide I went to the annual horse-fair at Antwerp, and I saw a great number of splendid horses there, and particularly two horses which were sold for 700 florins. I have made 1 florin 3 orth by art, and have taken the money for living expenses, and given 4 stiver to the doctor. I have given 3 stiver for 2 little books. I have dined 3 times with Tomasin. I have sketched 3 sword handles for him, and he has given me a small hare in alabaster. I have taken the portrait of an English nobleman in charcoal ; he has given me 1 florin for it, which I have changed for living expenses. Item : Maister Gerhard, illuminist, has a daughter 18 years old, called Susanna, and she has illuminated a plate, a Saviour, for which I gave 1 florin. It is a great wonder that a woman should do so well. [A very rude remark, Diirer ! This Susanna and her father, Gerhard Horembout, were afterwards celebrated illuminists at the court of our Henry VIII. The brother of Susanna also gave up painting for illumination, and settled in England, where he did well.] I have lost 6 stiver at play. I saw the great procession round Antwerp on Holy Trinity Sunday. Maister Conrad has given me some beautiful metal knives, so I have given his old man in return a Life of our Lady. I have taken the portrait of Jan, goldsmith of Brussels, in charcoal ; also his wife. I have made 2 florins by art. Item : Master Jan, goldsmith of Brussels, has given me for what I have done for him— the sketch for the signet, and the two portraits— 3 Philipp's gulden. I have given the Veronica that I painted in oils, and the Adam and Eve that Franz has done, to Jan, the goldsmith, in exchange for a sapphire and an agate with a Lucretia cut in it, and he on his part has refused 14 florins for them; and moreover I have given a whole set of engraved things for a ring and 6 stones, for which he has refused 7 florins. I have given 14 stiver for two pair of shoes. I have given two stiver for two boxes. I have changed 2 Philipp's florin for living expenses. I have sketched 3 Resurrections and 2 Mount of Olives on 5 half-sheets, and I have drawn 3 heads (Angesicht) in black and white on grey paper. K K 2 3o3 LIFE OF ALRBECHT DURER. I have sketched some Flemish costumes on grey paper, white and black. I have done the Englishman's Coat of Arms for him in colours, for which he has paid me i florin. I have besides again and again done sketches and many other things in the service of different persons, and for the most part of my zuork I have received nothing at all. [A very significant entry] Entres of Cracow has given me a Philipp's gulden for a Shield and a Child's Head that I did for him. I have changed a florin for living expenses. I have given 2 stiver for a brush. I saw the great procession that took place at Antwerp on Corpus Christi Day. It was very costly. I have given 4 stiver for Trinkgeld, 6 stiver to the doctor, and 1 stiver for a box. I have dined 5 times with Tomasin. I have given 10 stiver to the apothecary, and also 14 stiver to the apothecary's wife for a clyster; and to the apothecary 15 stiver for a receipt. And I have changed 2 Philipp's gulden for living expenses. Moreover I have given the doctor 6 stiver. To the monk who con fesses my wife I have given 8 stiver. I have given 8 florins for a whole piece of damask, and I have given 8 florins for 14 ells of damask. I have given the apothecary for medicines 32 stiver. Item : I have given the messenger 3 stiver, and the tailor 4 stiver. I have dined once with Hans Fehle, and 3 times with Tomasin. I have given 10 stiver for packing. In 1521 I have given up my great bales at Antwerp, on the Wednesday after Corpus Christi, to a waggoner named Cunz Mez of Schlauderdorff, to be taken to Nurn berg, and I am to pay him a florin and a half the hundredweight to take the things to Nurnberg, and he shall be responsible for them to Herr Hans Imhof. I have taken young Jacob Relinger's portrait in charcoal, and have dined 3 times with Tomasin. Item : Eight days after Corpus Christi I went to Mecheln with the intention of seeing the Lady Margaret [the Archduchess]. Item : Took 5 stiver with me for living expenses. My wife changed 1 florin. I lodged at Mecheln, at the inn of the Golden Head, with Maister rteinnch the painter [possibly Heinrich van Bles-Henri de Bles] ; and the painters and sculptors entertained me in my inn, and showed me great honour, and I went to Popenreuther's house, the cannon founder, and found many wonderful things there. I have also seen the Lady Margaret, and have shown her my Emperor, and would have given it to her [portrait of the Emperor Maximilian], but she took such a dislike JOURNAL. 309 to it that I brought it away with me again, And on the Friday she showed me all her beautiful things, and amongst them I saw 40 small oil-paintings, whose like I have never seen for purity and beauty, and then I saw other good things of Johann's (van Eyck) and Jacob Walch's. [Walch was a Nurnberg painter, celebrated for his portraits.] I begged my Lady to give me Maister Jacob's little book, but she said she had promised it to her painter. [For some reason the Archduchess is not nearly so gracious to Diirer this time as on the occasion of his former visit; indeed, although she showed him her fine things, she seems in the end to have treated him very badly.] Also I saw many other costly things, and a costly library. Maister Hans Popenreuter gave me an entertainment. I have twice had Maister Conrad for my guest, and once I had his wife. 27 stiver and 2 stiver spent in travelling. Also I have taken the portrait of Steffan the chamberlain, and Maister Conrad the carver. And on Saturday I left Mecheln again, and returned to Antwerp. Item: My trunks only went away on the Saturday after Corpus Christi. I have changed a florin for living expenses. Item : I have given three stiver to the messenger. I have twice dined with the Augustine monks. Item : I have drawn Maister Jacob in charcoal [Campe surmises that Maister Jacob is Jacob Cornelisz], and have had a picture made of it costing 6 stiver, and have presented it to him. I have taken the portraits of Bernhart Stecher and his wife, and given him a whole set of engravings ; and I have again taken the portrait of his wife, and I have paid 6 stiver to have a picture of it ; and I gave everything to him, so he gave me against it 10 florins. Maister Lucas [Lucas van Leyden], who engraves in copper, has invited me ; he is a little man (Mdnnlein), and was born at Leyden in Holland, but now in Antwerp. I have dined with Maister Bernhart Stecher. I have given a stiver and a half to the messenger. I have made 4 florins 1 orth by art. I have drawn Maister Lucas van Leyden in pencil. I have lost 1 florin. Item: I have given the doctor 6 stiver. Item : 6 stiver I have given the steward in the Augustine cloister at Antwerp, a Life of our Lady, and 4 stiver to his man. I have given Maister Jacob a copper Passion, a wood Passion, and 5 other pieces, and given 4 stiver to his man. I have changed 4 florins for living expenses. And I have given 2 Philipp's florins for 14 fish skins. I have taken the portraits of the physician 3io LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. Braun and his wife in black chalk. I have given the goldsmith who valued the ring for me, i florin's worth of art. Of the three rings that I have engraved with art, the two of smallest value were valued at 15 crowns, but the sapphire is valued at 25 crowns: this makes 54 florins 8 stiver ; and amongst other things that the French man has taken are 36 large books, making 9 florins. I have given 2 stiver for a screw-knife. Item : He with the 3 rings valued them at too much by half. I did not understand it. I have given 18 stiver for a red cap for my godchild.. Item: I have lost 1 2 stiver at play, and spent two stiver in drink. Item : I have bought the three beautiful little rubies for eleven gold gulden and 12 stiver. I have changed 1 florin for living expenses. I have dined with the Augustines. I have" dined twice with Tomasin. I have given 6 stiver for 13 paint-brushes of wild boar's hair; and I have given 3 stiver for 6 paint-brushes. Item : I have taken the portrait of the great Anthony Haunolt on royal-sized paper with black chalk. I have taken the portraits of the physician Braun and his wife very carefully on two royal sheets of paper with black chalk ; and I have drawn him in pencil, and he has given me an angel. Item : I have changed 1 florin for living expenses, and given 1 florin for a pair of boots. I have given 6 stiver for a Calamar [a kind of inkstand]. I have given 12 stiver for a chest to pack up our things in. Item: I have given 21 stiver for a dozen of ladies' gloves, and 6 stiver for a pocket. I have given 3 stiver for 3 paint brushes. I have changed a florin for living expenses. 1 stiver for an extinguisher. Item : Anthony Haunolt, whose portrait I took, has given me 3 Philipp's gulden ; and Bernhart Stecher has given a piece of tortoise-shell. I have taken the portrait of his wife's sister's daughter ; and have dined once with her husband, and he has given me 2 Philipp's gulden. Item : Have given 1 stiver as Trink geld. I have given Anthony Haunolt 2 books, and have made 13 stiver by art. I have given Maister Joachim, Griinhausen's thing [probably a painting by Hans Baldung Griin]. Item : Have changed 3 Philipp's florin for living expenses. Item : Have dined twice with Bernhart ; moreover twice with Tomasin. I have given Jobst's wife [Jobst Planckfelt his host] 4 pieces of wood-work [4 woodcuts]. Have given Friedrich, Jobst's man, 2 books, large. I have given Ilcnickin, the glazier's son, JOURNAL. 31 r 2 books. [Whenever Diirer makes presents of " books " he means sets of his woodcuts— the Passions, or Life of the Virgin.] Item : Ruderigo has given mea parrot that he has had brought him from Malaga ; and I have given his man 5 stiver for Trinkgeld. I have dined twice with Tomasin. I have given 2 stiver for a Beuerlein [?]. 3 stiver for a pair of shoes attached to breeches, and 4 stiver for 8 small boards. I have given Peter 2 whole sheets of copper-work and 1 sheet of wood-work. Item : Have dined twice with Tomasin. I have changed 1 florin for living expenses. I have presented Maister Art, glass-painter, with a Life of our Lady ; and Maister Jahn, the French sculptor, with a whole set ; and he has given my wife 6 little glasses with rose-water, made in the most costly manner. Item: Have given 7 stiver for a measure. I have changed a florin for living expenses. And I have given vii stiver for a bag. Cornelius the Secretary has given me "Luther's Imprisonment in Babylon," and I have given him in return 3 large books. [Cornelis Graphoeus, commonly called Scribonius. He was Town Secretary of Antwerp. — F. V.] Item : Have given Peter Puz, the monk, 1 florin's worth of art. Item : Have given the glass-painter 2 large books. Have given 4 stiver for a trussed turkey. Item : I have changed 1 Philipp's florin for living expenses. Item : Gave 8 florins' worth of my art for the whole of Lucas's engraved works. [Van Mander tells us that Diirer and Lucas van Leyden were very much astonished at each other when they first met, for Diirer was peculiarly finely- formed and stately, whilst Lucas van Leyden was a very little, mean-looking man — " ein Mannlein," as Diirer calls him. But notwithstanding this contrast in their personal appearance, they had the greatest respect for each other. They took each other's portraits, and in every way testified their mutual liking and esteem.] I have changed a Philipp's florin for living expenses. Have given 9 stiver for a pouch. Item : I have given 7 stiver for half a dozen Flemish cards, and 3 stiver for a small yellow post-horn. Item : Have given 24 stiver for meat, 12 stiver for some coarse cloth, more over 5 stiver for some coarse cloth. I have eaten twice with Tomasin, and given 1 stiver to Peter. I have paid 7 stiver for packing, and 3 stiver for help. Item : Ruderigo has given me 6 ells of black cloth for a cloak, costing a crown an ell. I have changed 2 florins for living expenses. I have given the tailor's man 2 stiver for Trinkgeld. 3I2 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. I have had a reckoning with Jobst, and I am indebted to him 31 florins, which I have paid him, deducting for the two portraits that I have done for him in oil-colours; for these he has given me 5 pounds of borax, Flemish weight. In all my transactions in the Netherlands with people both of high and low degree, and in all my doings, expenses, sales, and other trafficking, I have always had the disadvantage ; and particularly the Lady Margaret, for all that I have given her and done for her, has given me nothing in return. [" Put not thy faith in princes." Diirer evidently considers himself to have been very hardly used in the Netherlands. He is now about to return home, but has, as we shall see, to borrow the money for his journey from one of the Imhofs, so little has he saved during his stay in the Netherlands; but one cannot help remembering the bales of luggage that he has sent home to Nurnberg and the numbers of stivers that he has paid for horns, porcelain cups, and curiosities of all sorts, besides the sums lavished in Trinkgeld.] And this settlement with Jobst took place on St. Peter and St. Paul's day. I have given Ruderigo's man 7 stiver for Trinkgeld. I have given Maister Heinrich my engraved Passion, and he has given me some cakes of cherries. I have been obliged to give the tailor 45 stiver for making my mantle. I have engaged with a coachman, who is to take us from Antwerp to Coin, and I am to pay him 13 light gulden, each one making 24 light stiver, and over and above this I am to pay a man and a boy. Item : Jacob Relinger has paid me a ducat for the portrait I did of him in charcoal. Gerhard has given me two jars of capers and olives, for which I have given 4 stiver as Trinkgeld. I have given Ruderigo's man 1 stiver. I have exchanged my portrait of the Emperor [the one he intended for the Archduchess] for some white English cloth that Jacob, Tomasin's son- in-law, gave me. Item : Alexander Imhof has lent me a hundred gold florins on the Eve of the Visitation of the Virgin 1521, and I have given him a written and sealed acknowledgment that I will be answer able to him at Nurnberg, and will pay him again with thanks. I have given 6 stiver for a pair of shoes, 3 stiver for cord. I have given a Philipp's florin as a parting Trinkgeld in Tomasin's kitchen, and have given his daughter's maid a gold florin for a last gift I have dined with him 3 times. I have given Jobst's wife 1 florin, and also fOURNAL. 313 1 florin for the last Trinkgeld in his kitchen. Item : 2 stiver to the porter. Tomasin has given me a small box full of the best theriac. Item : I have changed 3 florins for living expenses, and have given the house-boy 10 stiver, and Peter 1 stiver. I have given 2 stiver for Trinkgeld, moreover 3 stiver to Maister Jacob's man. I have given 4 stiver for help. I have given Peter 1 stiver. Item : I have given the messenger 3 stiver. On the day of the Visitation of our Lady (July 2), just as I was going to set off from Antwerp, the King of Denmark sent for me in haste to come and take his portrait, which I did in charcoal ; and I likewise took the portrait of his servant Anthony ; and I was invited to dine with the King, and he showed himself very gracious to me. [The King of Denmark was Christian II. , who had come to the Netherlands to pay a visit to his brother-in-law, Charles V.] I have left my luggage to the care of Leonhart Tucher, and I have given up to him my white cloth. Item : The before-mentioned waggoner has not taken me, for I fell out with him. Gerhart has given me some Italian seeds. And I have given to the man whom I engaged in his place (Vicarius) the large piece of tortoise-shell, the shield of fish-scales, the long pipe, the weapons, the fish-fins, and the two jars of lemons and capers, to take home for me on the day of the Visitation of the Virgin 1521. And on the next day we travelled to Brussels on the King of Denmark's business, and I engaged a coachman, to whom I gave 2 florins. Item : I presented the King of Denmark with the best pieces out of my entire set, worth 5 florins. I have changed 2 florins for living expenses. I stiver for dishes and baskets. Item : I saw how astonished the people of Antwerp were when they saw the King of Denmark, to find that he was such a handsome and manly man, and had come by himself through his enemies' lands. I also saw the Emperor ride forth to meet him at Brussels, and receive him honour ably with great pomp. After that I saw the honourable and costly banquet that the Emperor and Lady Margaret held on the next day. I have given 2 stiver for a pair of gloves. Item : Herr Antoni has given me 12 horn florins. Of these I have given 2 horn florins to the painter for small panels for pictures and for rubbing colours for me ; the other 8 florins I have taken for living money. Item : On the Sunday before St. Margaret (St. Margaret's day, the 20th s s 3i4 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. of July) the King of Denmark gave a great banquet to the Emperor, Frau Margaret, and the Queen of Spain, and invited me, and I also ate thereof. I have given 12 stiver for the King's Futrall (?), and I have taken the King's portrait in oil-colours ; and he has given me 30 florins for it. Item : I have given 2 stiver to the young man called Bartholomew who has rubbed colours for me. I have given 11 stiver for a small glass and a small box belonging to the King. I have given 2 stiver for Trinkgeld. Item : I have given 2 stiver for the engraved barn. Item : Have given Maister Jan's boy 4 half sheets ; moreover I have given the master painter's boy an Apoca lypse and 4 half sheets. Polonius has given me an Italian piece of art. [This is the Polonius who gave him " Raphael things."] Item : I have given a stiver for a bit of art. Maister Jobst, tailor, invited me, and I had supper with him. I have given for eight days' lodging at Brussels 32 stiver. I have presented the wife of Maister Jan the goldsmith with an engraved Passion. I have dined with them 3 times. I have given the apprentice of Bartholomew the painter a Life of the Virgin. I have dined with Herr Niclaus Zigler, and I have given Jan's boy 1 stiver. I have been obliged to remain two days longer than I desired at Brussels, because I could not get anybody to undertake our conveyance. I have given a stiver for a pair of socks. Item : Early on Friday morning we set off from Brussels, and I was obliged to give the coachman 10 florins. Also I had to give my hostess 5 stiver for a single night's lodging. After that we travelled through two villages, and came to Lowen [or perhaps Diiren] ; ate our breakfast, and expended 13 stiver. After that we travelled through 3 villages, and came to Tina [Tirlemont], which is a small town, and we lay there over night ; and I spent there vjjjj stiver. After that, on St. Margaret's day early (20th July) we set out and travelled through 2 villages, and came to a town which is called S. Getrauen (St. Tron), where they were building a very remarkable and big new church-tower. From thence we travelled past some poor dwellings, and came to a little town named Hungern ; there we ate our breakfast, and spent 6 stiver,. From thence we went through a village and some poor houses, and came to Triche (Maas tricht) ; there we lay the night, and spent there 12 stiver; moreover 2 plancken for a watchman's fee (Wachgeld). From thence we travelled on Sunday early to Ach (Aix-la-Chapelle), where we ate JOURNAL. 315 our breakfast, and spent 14 stiver. From thence we went to Alten- berg (Altenhoven), a 6 hours' drive, for the coachman did not know his way, and went wrong, and so we stayed the night there, and spent 6 stiver. On Monday we travelled through Gulch (Jiilich), a town, and came to Perckkan (Bergheim) ; there we ate our breakfast, and spent 3 stiver. From thence we travelled to Cohln (Koln). Here the journal abruptly ends, not perhaps altogether to the dissatisfaction of the plodding reader. Diirer does not tell us how he travelled from Koln to Nurnberg, but we can easily imagine how he " travelled through 2 villages and came to Briihl, where we lay the night, and spent 6 stiver; and after that we set out early and travelled through 3 villages and came to Bonn, a little town," and so on to Frankfort, and from Frankfort to Niirnberg. It is strange to think that the journey from Brussels to Koln, which took Diirer 4 entire days, is now performed in six hours and a half ! It seems tolerably certain that Diirer did not delay long on his homeward journey, but returned to Nurnberg in the autumn of 1521, although it has been stated by several of his biographers that he stayed another year or two in the Netherlands. S S 2 CHAPTER II. LAST YEARS IN NURNBERG, AND DEATH. " Emigravit is the inscription on the tombstone where he lies; Dead he is not,— but departed,— for the artist never dies." Longfellow. So Diirer returned once more to Nurnberg, and again took up his quiet, monotonous, work-a-day life in the dull house in the Zissel- strasse. He must often have looked back on the brilliant days he had spent in the Netherlands— days when the painters or the gold smiths invited him to dinner and treated him "as if he had. been some great lord," or the Portuguese Factor gave him " a costly meal." Here in Nurnberg he was only a prophet in his own country ; but even here there were not wanting many noble and intellectual spirits who quite well knew how to appreciate their native artist. Amongst the friends to whom Diirer brought back presents from the Netherlands were names distinguished in the annals of Nurnberg ; names of men who had already declared themselves on the side of Luther and freedom of thought. Whilst Diirer had been away on his travels, the Reformation had been making giant strides in his native town ; and as, alas ! too frequently happens in times of such revolutions of men's thoughts, the greatest disorders and social evils prevailed. Unstable men were tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine, and lascivious monks and nuns threw off even the slight restraint that the Church of Rome had put upon their passions, and made the new religion a cloak for the grossest immorality. False preachers were everywhere abroad, who would deceive if it were possible even the very elect, and the poor weakling lambs of Christ's fold stood in fearful danger of being swallowed alive by the wolves. Altogether, THE RE FORM A TION IN NURNBER G. 317 it was not a very peaceful or a very happy town to which Diirer returned, and any other artist but he would probably have regretted not having accepted the tempting offers that were made him on condition of his staying in Antwerp. But we cannot suppose that he would have cared to have been long absent whilst the storm-wind of the Reformation was sweeping over his native town ; sleeping it clean, certainly, of many foul heaps of corruption, and clearing away many piles of tawdry rubbish that had hidden the true beauty of holiness, but throwing down likewise in its violence many venerable structures in which were stored much of the wisdom and learning of the past. It was owing principally to such men as Willibald Pirkheimer and Lazarus Spengler, and others of the same class, that the Reformed faith took such a firm hold of Nurnberg, and that it was on the whole established with so much moderation and so little injustice. No work of art has suffered from the fanatical fury of iconoclasts and puritans in Nurnberg, and to the present day carved Madonnas and saints stand at the corners of the streets, although Nurnberg was the first free Imperial city of Germany that declared for Luther and the Reformation. Diirer could scarcely help being moved by the rapid course of events around him— events in which his friends, if not himself, bore such an active part ; Pirkheimer and Spengler in particular being at length excommunicated by the Pope for the help they had given to the Reformers. Indeed, the influence of the times is seen to some extent in the subjects of his art at this period, for we have very few traditional representations of the legends of the Catholic Church, and only one Holy Family— a Holy Family, be it remarked, and not a Virgin picture— during the last few years of his life ; but on the other hand we have several representations from the life of Christ, and a number of noble portraits of the men of the time, both painted and engraved in wood and copper. These portraits are amongst the greatest of his later works. I have already spoken of his magnificent portrait of Hieronymus Holzschuher, a painting in which the soul of those stirring times flashes forth on us even at the present day from out the fiery eyes of the powerful old man. Another painted portrait of this period is that of Johann Kleeberger, now in the Belvedere at Vienna— a man so much esteemed for the generous use he made of his riches that he was known in foreign countries as 3 x 8 LIFE OF ALBRECHT D URER. " the good German." Durer's portrait of him, although not so forcibly painted as that of Holzschuher, is a fine and characteristic work. Jacob Miiffel, Burgomaster and member of the Rath, for whom it will be remembered Diirer brought home a scarlet handkerchief for the neck, was likewise painted by him in oils in this same year 1526 — the year in which Jacob Miiffel died. This portrait, of which there is a repetition in the possession of a merchant named Merkel in Nurnberg, is now in the gallery at Pommersfelden. It is, according to Kugler, " truthfully conceived, and of masterly modelling, but somewhat heavy and grey in colour." His engraved portraits of this time are more widely known, and excite a larger interest than the three paintings above mentioned ; for these are not merely portraits of Nurnberg worthies — who, although men celebrated in their time and their town, have very little interest for posterity — but of men who set a mark upon the age in which they lived, and whose names are still familiar to us at the present day. Foremost amongst these portraits stands the well-known engraving of Erasmus of Rotterdam, representing the philosopher in half-figure, seated at a writing-desk with a pen in his right hand, and the ink- bottle, into which he has apparently just dipped it, in his left. He wears a soft cap on his head, and looks decidedly "already an old mannikin." To the left hangs a tablet with the following inscription : IMAGO. ERASMI. ROTERODAMI. AB. ALBERTO. DVRERO. AD. VIVAM. EFFIGIEM. DELINIATA. THN. KPEITTI2. TA. STrrPAMMATA. AEIHEI. MDXXVI. K This portrait was engraved by Diirer from the sketch of Erasmus that he mentions in his journal as having taken at Brussels. It was intended that he should have done a finished oil-painting, as we learn from a letter of Erasmus to Pirkheimer, in which he says : " He (Durer) began to paint me at Brussels, and it is to be wished that he had accomplished a painting, but from trivial causes we were not at that time very well agreed."1 1 Dumcsnil, Histoire des plus ccl6brcs Amateurs etrangcrs. POR TRAIT OF MELANCHTHON. 3 1 9 Their difference of opinion on the religious questions of the day was no doubt the primary cause of their disagreement. Erasmus, however, was very anxious that Durer, as well as Holbein, should take his portrait, and wrote to Pirkheimer several times about it, but when at last he received the engraving of 1526 he was not quite satisfied with it; for, as it was done from a sketch taken in Brussels six years previously, it of course made him look younger than he was at the time it was published; and in sending Holbein's portrait to Sir Thomas More in England, he takes occasion to tell him that "it is much more like him than the one by the famous Albrecht Durer." But this portrait, although it did not happen to please the ever- dissatisfied philosopher, has been highly esteemed by posterity; and indeed its forcible character, evident likeness, and admirable execution cannot be too highly praised. Another engraved portrait of this same year is that of Philip Melanchthon, a totally different type of man to Erasmus, and one whom we can well imagine would be far more congenial to Diirer's sensitive artist nature than the clever, sarcastic philosopher ; indeed the thought ful artist and tender, dreamy Reformer appear to have suited one another exactly, and when the latter came to Nurnberg in 1526 to establish the first Protestant Gymnasium or Latin School in the town, they lived in almost constant intercourse, and shared one another's most intimate thoughts. Such a mind as Melanchthon's could scarcely fail to have had a considerable influence over Diirer's ; and if his Protestant sympathies were before somewhat wavering — holding, like so many others of the time, to Catholic forms whilst accepting Protestant doctrines — his faith must have been strengthened and his doubting soul comforted by this communion with one of the noblest and largest minded Reformers of that age. It is pleasant to think of Durer's last years being cheered and upheld by such a friendship as this; and to Melanchthon also it appears to have afforded true pleasure, for he ever speaks of Diirer in the warmest terms of praise, saying of him once, as I have already recorded, that " his least merit was his art." His sorrow on hearing the news of Durer's death, which he could not at first believe, was real and deep. " I grieve," he says, " for Germany, deprived of such a man and such an artist." Very different to Erasmus, who expresses his thoughts on the subject — one cannot say his feelings — in a somewhat harsh and grating manner. " What is the use," he says, 3 2 o LIFE OF A LB RE CHT D URER. " of mourning over Durer's death ? Are we not all mortal ? I have prepared an epitaph for him in my little book " (libello meo)?- The characters of these two men indeed, and their modes of viewing the great events that were being enacted in their time, were as different as the features that Durer has represented in their portraits. They have each, it is true, eyes, nose, and mouth in common, but here the resemblance ceases. Erasmus is the hard student, wrinkled with learn ing and thought, even more than with age ; a man whose whole heart is immersed in the folios that lie around him. Melanchthon is the lofty-browed transcendentalist, whose intellectual nature is clearly seen in the finely cut face and beautiful eyes, although the forehead is as yet unwrinkled by study. His is a face that might well be taken by artists for that of the beloved disciple and platonist, St. John. The portrait of Willibald Pirkheimer, given in Part I., was taken two years before those of Erasmus and Melanchthon. Few, judging from this portrait, would give him credit for having burnt much midnight oil, at least for purposes of study. Yet we know that he was a man well versed in all the learning of his age, somewhat of a pedant, perhaps, but one quite worthy by his intellectual acquirements of being the friend of such men as Ulrich von Hutten, Erasmus, and Melanchthon. Very little of the " great wisdom " that Diirer extols both in earnest and in jest in his letters is apparent in this portrait, but rather one seems to understand by it how it was that the original, with grim humour, came to write a work in praise of the gout 1 It is indeed certain that Pirkheimer loved other pleasures besides those of know ledge, and, as is evident from Durer's letters, courted other female society than that of the Muses. Two other portraits, namely that of the Elector Albrecht of Mainz (1523), and that of Friedrich the Wise of Saxony, Luther's supporter (1524), complete the number engraved on copper at this period ; but equalling, or even surpassing these in design and execution, is the magnificent woodcut of Ulrich Varnbiihler, whom Diirer styles in the Latin dedication that he has stuck above the portrait, his "single friend." His own portrait likewise, engraved on wood in his fifty-sixth year, must not be passed without notice, for it is the last of the numerous likenesses he has left us of himself, beginning with that early 1 Dumesnil, Histoire des plus ce"lebres Amateurs (Strangers. LATEST WORKS. 321 sketch done from the looking-glass "when I was still a child." This last portrait, executed in his fifty-sixth year, is totally unlike all the others we have of him. He ha^s shorn off his beautiful long hair and soft flowing beard — perhaps on account of his illness, or possibly as no longer caring for the vanities of his youth ; and he seems, with his hair, to have lost much of his comeliness, if not of his strength. This last portrait affects me somewhat sadly, for the face looks worn and weary in it, although the melancholy expression of so many of his earlier portraits has disappeared. I have said that Diirer executed but few distinctly Catholic subjects at this period, but it is not altogether without significance, as Dr. von Eye points out, that in the same year that he returned to Nurnberg he twice engraved the noble giant St. Christopher, bearing the Christ- child through the water (Heller, 708 and 715), one of the most beautiful and expressive legends of the Catholic Church. With the storm-floods swelling and raging around it was well to direct men's thoughts to Him whom even the winds and the seas obey ; to Him who was once a Child on the earth, and yet was the mightiest monarch that St Christopher ever found to serve. Once again this subject was executed by Diirer, as a woodcut in 1525, making in all five times that he has represented St. Christopher. Three New Testament saints in copper-engraving, and several representations from the life of Christ in woodcut, together with one Holy Family (Heller, 1804), complete the number of sacred subjects engraved during the last years of Durer's life; and of other subjects none have much interest except his own coat of arms, represented on the cover of this book, and the arms of the town of Nurnberg, both woodcuts. The whole strength of his intellect and the whole power of his hand in these latter years of life were put forth in his great pictures of the Apostles; and with the exception of the portraits of his con temporaries, he executed little else of much importance after his return from the Netherlands. His time at this period was greatly taken up with the preparation of his literary treatises, and probably his failing health prevented that close application to work which had characterised his more vigorous years. For the " wonderful illness " that he had taken in Zealand never entirely left him, and he appears continually to have had attacks either of some kind of low nervous fever, or else of lung disease, which gradually wasted his once powerful frame until it brought T T 322 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. with it the release that Camerarius tells us " was desired by himself, and only painful to his friends." Probably it was in anticipation of his approaching death that he wrote in 1524, the following long and earnest letter to the Rath of Nurnberg : — Provident, Honourable, Wise, and Most Favourable Lords, — I have during long years of work and remarkable pains, through God's providence, earned a sum of a thousand gulden Rhenish, and I would now willingly lay them by for my support. Although I know that it is not now the custom with your Wisdoms to give much interest, since I am aware that other persons in similar cases have been refused ; yet I am moved by my necessity, by the particularly favour able regard which your Honourable Wisdoms have ever shown towards me, and also by the other following causes, to beg this thing of your Honours. Your Wisdoms know that I have always been obedient, willing, and diligent in all things done for your Wisdoms, and for the common State^ and for other persons of the Rath, and that the State has always had my help, art, and work, whenever they were needed, and that without payment rather than for money ; for I can write with truth that, during the thirty years that I have had a house in this town, I have not had 500 guldens' worth of work from it, and what I have had has been poor and mean, and I have not gained the fifth part for it that it was worth ; but all that I have earned, which God knows has only been by hard toil, has been from princes, lords, and other foreign persons. Also I have expended all my earnings from foreigners in this town. Also your Honours doubtless know that, on account of the many works I had done for him, the late Emperor Maximilian, of praiseworthy memory, out of his own Imperial liberality granted me an exemption from the rates and taxes of this town (in diser Stat frey setzen wolln), which however I voluntarily gave up, when I was spoken to about it by some of the Elders of the Rath, in order to show honour to my Lords, and to maintain their favour and uphold their customs and justice. Item : The Government of Venice nineteen years ago would have given me a pension of 200 ducats a year, and the Rath of Antwerp offered to pay me every year three hundred Philipp's gulden, to set me free of rates and taxes, and to give me a well-built house ; and in both places all that I did for the Government would have been paid over LETTER TO THE RATH. 323 and above the pension ; all of which, out of my particular love for my honourable and wise Lords, for this town, and for my Fatherland, I refused, and chose rather to live in a moderate manner near your Wisdoms (bey euer Weisheit) than to be rich and great in any other place. It is therefore my dutiful request to your Lordships that you will take all these things into your favourable consideration, and that you will be so good as to take these thousand gulden (which I could easily lay out with other worthy people both here and elsewhere, but which I would rather know were in the hands of your Wisdoms), and grant me a yearly interest upon them of fifty gulden ; so that I and my wife, who are becoming every day old, weak, and incapable, may have a moderate provision against want. And I will ever do my very utmost to deserve your noble Wisdoms' favour and approbation as heretofore. — Your Wisdoms' willing and obedient Burger, Albrecht Durer. The Rath acceded to the request of its "obedient Burger" and granted him the fifty gulden of interest that he desired, during the remainder of his life. After his death, however, their "provident Wisdoms" refused to pay his widow more than 4 per cent, interest on the money. Truly it seems to have paid better to have been an unquiet and faithless Burger like Veit Stoss, than a meek, obedient one like Diirer. Veit Stoss, it is thought, died possessed of a considerable amount of property for a man in his position, whilst Diirer, after long years of "remarkable pains" and hard work, had only been able to save a thousand gulden. This touching letter to the Rath — touching in that his reproaches against the governing powers of his native town are those of a loving child, who conceives with reason that he has been somewhat neglected by his father, to whom he has always shown duty and affection — was followed by that other letter already quoted, in which he makes the Rath a present of his paintings of the Apostles, the last and greatest work of his life. After this he seems to have felt that his work on this earth had come to an end, for of the year 1527 we find scarcely anything, not even drawings of any importance, by his hand. Silently and gradually the once bright-burning flame of his life died away until on the 6th of April, 1528, men told one another that Albrech Diirer had "departed." t T 2 _24 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. An attack of his long-continued complaint, more violent than usual, carried him off after but a few days' illness.1 Camerarius tells us that he wished for death, and that it came to him gently, before even his friends were aware that it was so near. Even Pirkheimer, who happened to be away from Nurnberg at the time, seems to have been unaware of his friend's approaching death ; for he regrets bitterly that he had not the sad pleasure of a last farewell. Diirer was buried in St. John's Churchyard, outside the walls of Nurnberg,2 in the family grave of his father-in-law, Hans Frey.3 Pirk heimer placed the following simple, but sufficient, inscription on his grave : — ME . AL . DV QVICQVID ALBERTI DVRERI MORTALE FVIT, SVB HOC CONDITVR TVMVLO EMIGRAVIT . VIII . IDVS APRILIS. M.D.XXVIII. IP 1 It has been supposed by some writers that Diirer died of the plague, but the few facts that we know concerning his last illness are distinctly contradictory to such a supposition. The only piece of evidence that can be brought forward to support it is a remarkable drawing of a plague-stricken man, said to have been executed by Diirer in his last illness, and to be a portrait of himself. This drawing, which was formerly in the Griinling, Roscoe, and Esdaile collections, but is now in the possession of a Swiss gentleman, represents a naked man pointing to a discoloured spot on his side, and beneath it is written in handwriting that resembles Durer's, " Where my fingers point, there I suffer." An old manuscript note at the bottom of the sheet states that this drawing was made by Diirer a few days before his death, when he was so ill that his physician had not the courage to attend him any longer ; he therefore had recourse to this method for letting the doctor know " where he suffered." In spite of this circumstantial story however, and the accidental likeness that the figure of the plague-stricken man bears to Diirer, it is extremely unlikely that the drawing represents him, or was even made by him. The note was probably written by some ingenious possessor, who observed or fancied a likeness, and then proceeded to frame an hypothesis to account for it. After a time, no doubt, he was so well satisfied with his explanation of the matter that he felt no hesitation in writing it down as if it were a verified fact. 2 Nurnberg was the first Imperial town of Germany that recognised the sanitary wisdom of having its cemetery outside the walls of the town. 3 Hans Frey must have died in 1523, for in that year Diirer drew him as a corpse in water-colours on linen. This drawing was formerly in the Imhof collection, but on account of its horrible (abschculichen) appearance no one would buy it. GRAVES OF DURER AND PIRKHEIMER. 325 Joachim Sandrart, however, the biographer of the German artists, considered that this plain inscription did not sufficiently express Durer's merits : he therefore in 1674 added a florid Latin epitaph in the style of the seventeenth century, and some German verses of small merit. These are inscribed on a metal plate let into the stone slab below the arms of the Frey family, which are likewise engraved on a small metal plate with the modest inscription : — M . CCCCC . XXI DER . FREIEN . BEGREBTNUS ( The grave of the Frey family) ; the inscription that Pirkheimer composed occupying the important position at the head of the plain stone tomb. But a few steps from Durer's grave in the quiet cemetery of St. John, where generation after generation of Ntirnbergers have found their rest, is the grave of Willibald Pirkheimer, likewise marked by a plain slab of stone resting on the ground. Pirkheimer only survived Diirer two years ; so even in death these life-long friends were not long divided.1 Pirkheimer appears to have been at first almost inconsolable for the loss he had sustained, and in a letter written in Latin to some friend named Ulrich, probably Ulrich Varnbuhler,2 he gives free vent to his feelings of sorrow : "Although," he says, "I have been often tried by the death of those'who were dear to me, I think I have never until now experienced such sorrow as the sudden loss of our dearest and best Diirer has caused me. And truly not without cause; for of all men who were not bound to me by ties of blood, I loved and esteemed him the most, on account of his countless merits and rare integrity. As I know, my dear Ulrich, that you share my sorrow, I do not hesitate to allow » A solemn festival was held in Nurnberg on the 6th of April, 1828, the third centenary of Durer's death, and the whole body of artists and other visitors, assembled on the occasion, went in procession early on the Easter Sunday morning (for the 6th of April fell that year on Easter Sunday) to the cemetery of St. John, and sang hymns at Durer's grave. Some verses composed, I believe, by Dr. Campe were likewise sung at Pirkheimer's grave. The festival lasted several days, and Nurnberg hospitably entertained artists and lovers of art from all parts of Germany, who flocked there to do honour to the greatest of her art children. 2 It is clear that it was not to Ulrich von Hutten, as has been frequently stated, for Hutten died some years before Diirer. 326 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. it free course in your presence, so that we may consecrate together a just tribute of tears to our dear friend. He has gone from us, our Albrecht ! Let us weep, my dear Ulrich, over the inexorable fate, the miserable lot of man and the unfeeling cruelty of death ! A noble man is snatched away, whilst so many others, worthless and incapable men, enjoy unclouded happiness, and have their years prolonged beyond the ordinary term of man's life." But it is in a letter to a certain Joh. Tschertte, an architect at Vienna, that he expresses his thoughts and his feelings on this subject in the fullest manner. This letter is so important, from the testimony he bears in it against Agnes Frey, that I give the part of it that refers to Durer's death in full, leaving it for readers to judge whether the sad picture he draws of Durer's home-life — a picture that must touch every heart with sorrow and resentment — was at all coloured by his dislike to the woman against whom he brings such heavy accu sations. The letter was not written until nearly two years after Diirer's death, so that his statements were not made in the first unreasoning violence of grief, but were deliberately recorded after abundant time for due consideration. Letter or Willibald Pirkheimer to Joh. Tschertte in Vienna. My friendly willing service to you, my dear Herr Tschertte. Our good friend Herr Georg Hartman has shown me a letter of yours to him, in which you not only speak of me with kindness, but accord me a larger measure of praise and honour than I feel myself worthy of receiving. I will therefore ascribe your good-will to our dear friend Albrecht Diirer, now dead in the Lord. For as you loved him on account of his art and his many virtues, so also those who likewise loved him must doubtless be dear to you. To this sentiment I must ascribe your good-will, and by no means to my own merits. Truly I lost in Albrecht the best friend I ever had in the world, and nothing grieves me so much as to think that he died such an unhappy death, for after the providence of God I can ascribe it to no one but his wife, who so gnawed at his heart (sein Herz eyngen- agcu), and worried him to such a degree, that he departed from this LETTER FROM PIRKHEIMER. 327 world sooner than he would otherwise have done. He was dried up like a bundle of straw, and never dared to be in good spirits, or to go out into society. For this bad woman was always anxious, although really she had no cause to be, and she urged him on day and night, and forced him to hard work only for this, — that he might earn money and leave it to her when he died. For she always feared ruin, as she does still, notwithstanding that Albrecht has left her property worth about six thousand gulden. But nothing ever satisfied her, and in short (in summa) she alone was the cause of his death. I have often myself expostulated with her about her suspicious, blameworthy conduct, and have warned her, and told her beforehand what the end of it would be, but I have never met with anything but ingratitude. For whoever was a friend of her husband's, and wished him well, to him she was an enemy ; which truly troubled Albrecht to the highest degree, and brought him at last to his grave. I have not seen her since his death ; she will have nothing to do with me, although I have been helpful to her in many things, but one cannot trust her. She is always suspicious of anybody who contradicts her, or does not take her part in all things, and is immediately an enemy. Therefore I would much rather she should keep away from me. She and her sister are not loose characters, but, as I do not doubt, honourable, pious, and very God-fearing women, but one would rather have to do with a light woman, who behaved in a friendly manner, than with such a nagging, suspicious, scolding, pious woman, with whom a man can have no peace night or day. We must however leave the matter to God, who will be gracious and merciful to our good Albrecht, for he lived a pious and upright man, and died in a very Christian and blessed manner; therefore we need not fear his salvation. God grant us grace that we may happily follow him when our time comes. This is all that the letter contains concerning Diirer, the greater part of it being taken up with Pirkheimer's views on the great religious problems of that day ; but in one place his anger against Agnes Frey again breaks out, for he tells his correspondent anent the subject of stag-antlers, of which he seems to have been a collector, that Durer possessed several antlers, and amongst them a pair of very fine ones which he should have liked much to have had, "but that she 328 LIFE OF ALBRECHT DURER. (i.e. Agnes Frey) sold them for a mere nominal price, with many other fine things, without letting me know," evidently, as he hints, in order to annoy him. Truly she must have been a most miserable woman !— unhappy in herself, and making every one else unhappy around her. Poor Durer ! the skeleton from which he drew his figures of death, and which is still shown in his house in Nurnberg, must have been a lively companion compared with this living death's head that sat at his table and shared his bed, striking a chill into his very heart. One would imagine, as she wandered up and down the desolate rooms of the old house, out of which her husband had at last escaped from her scoldings, that her conscience must sometimes have upbraided her for not havlhg made it a brighter and pleasanter abode for him and his friends; but fro doubt her " piety " supported her under her affliction, and she probably considered that she had only done her duty in worrying her husband to death. She survived Diirer eleven years, and carried on a profitable trade with his woodcuts and engravings, for she inherited everything of which he died possessed — his " art things " as well as his other property.1 The publication of his writings also must have brought her in some what, and she seems to have known how to look after her interests, for in 1533 she appealed to the Rath to suppress a pirated edition of the Book of Human Proportions that had been published in France. In consequence of this the Rath sent a letter in her name to the King of France, begging him to see justice done in the matter ; but, as might be imagined, the letter did not produce much effect ; indeed, as I have said, Durer's works were pirated in every country, and in every form, and, what was still worse for his fame, his monogram was fraudu lently placed on works by his pupils and other far inferior masters. One good deed must be remembered of Agnes Frey. She devoted the sum placed out at interest by her husband to founding a scholar- 1 According to an inventory made by Diirer at some period of his life, his other property could not have been large. He says in this inventory, that has accidentally been preserved amongst some other papers, that he has never had the chance of making any large amount of money, but that all that he possesses has been earned by his own hand ; also that he has had to suffer great losses, especially on account of some one who died at Rome. He then proceeds to enumerate his goods. " Item : Some tolerably good household furniture (Hawsrott Hausrath), some pewter ware, some good utensils, parchment, trunks, and more than 100 florins' worth of good colour." This inventory was probably taken some years previous to his death, for, according to Pirkheimer, he left property amounting to 6,000 florins to his widow. THE LAST OF THE DURER FAMILY. 329 ship for poor theological students at the University of Wittenberg. After her death, Andreas Diirer, who, as the reader will remember, was a goldsmith in Nurnberg, inherited the copper-plates and blocks of his brother, and he had them printed to such an extent that even in his time many of them were quite worn out. Andreas Diirer, like Albrecht, died childless, and he was the last of the eighteen children who were born to Albrecht Diirer der dltere by the beautiful Barbara Hallerin ; for Hans Diirer, court painter to the King of Poland, and the Benjamin of the family, appears to have died before this time, and also to have left no children. With Andreas therefore, the name of Diirer became extinct in Nurnberg. But so long as the German tongue endures, the name of Albrecht Diirer will be a household word in every home of the Fatherland, and will awaken feelings of love, reverence, and admiration in every heart ; and to Englishmen likewise, who belong to the same great .Teutonic race, there will come with greater knowledge greater love, for Albrecht Diirer belongs not to Nurnberg, or to , Germany only, but to all the world ; and his works are the inheritance of mankind. u u INDEX. U U 2 GENERAL INDEX. Aachen (Aix), visited by Diirer, 282 ; coro nation of Charles V. at, 283. Albert Collection, Vienna, 231. Albrecht, Elector of Mainz, his portrait, 320. Antwerp, Diirer's arrival in, 265 ; guild of painters in, 267 ; cathedral at, 269 ; grand procession in, 287. Apocalypse, woodcuts of, 108 ; blocks for, ib. ; early impressions of, 109; editions of, 119. Architecture, Diirer's book on, 241. Arend, his inaccuracies in regard to Diirer, 255- Artists who copied Diirer, 145, 186. Arundel, Earl of, 162 ; his collection, 233. Augsburg, Diirer's visit to, in 1578, 99. B. Camerarius, Joachim, his preface to Diirer's Book of Human Proportions, 51; his anec dote of Diirer and Bellini, 73 ; his Latin translation of Diirer's Mensuration, 243, 246 ; his sketch of Durer's life, 51, 246. Campe, Dr. Friedrich, his " Reliquien von Albrecht Diirer," 31. Charles V., his entry into Antwerp, 268, 280 ; his coronation at Aachen, 283. Chelidonius supplies the text for the Passions, 133- Cole, H., republishes the Little Passion, 137. Confirmatia given by Charles V. to Diirer, 285. Cornill d'Orville, Herr, his collection at Frank fort, 109 ; possesses Pirkheimer's plan for the Triumphal Car, 157. Courtship in Germany in the Middle Ages, 54- Custom-houses on the Rhine, 261. Bale, Mr. C. S., his collection of Durer's drawings, 236. Bamberg, Bishop of, visited by Diirer, 259. Bartsch, his " Peintre Graveur," 106. Baumgartner, Stephan, 80 ; supposed to be drawn in the Knight, Death, and Devil, 172; altar-piece painted for him, 224. Behaim, Martin, 25. Beham, Hans Sebald, steals one of Diirer's books, 241. Bellini, Giovanni, visits Diirer, 72 ; anecdote of. 73- Belvedere, Gallery of, at Vienna, 219. Berlin, Durer's drawings in, 237. British Museum, Arch of Maximilian in, 156; Diirer's drawings in, 232 ; hone-stone carv ing in, 238 ; Diirer's manuscript in, 247. Bruges, visited by Diirer, 278. Brunswick, carving by Diirer at, 239. Brussels, visited by Diirer, 273, 313. Bullman, Hans, his astronomical clock, 6. Burlington Club, exhibition of Diirer's works at, 229, 236. D. Denmark, King of, his portrait, 313; banquet with Charles V. ib. Derschau, Baron von, former possessor of Diirer's sketch-books, 100. Devonshire, Duke of, his collection of Diirer's drawings, 236. Dibdin, notice about Diirer's journal, 100. Drawings, character of Diirer's, 231. Dresden, Durer's drawings in, 237 ; Durer's MS. in Library at, 245. Diirer, Albrecht, ancestry of, 29 ; birth of, 32; sorrows of his early life, 33 ; mother of, ii. ; education of, 34 ; earliest portraits of, 36 ; works under his father, 39 ; not a pupil of Schongauer's, 40 ; apprenticed to Wohlgemuth, 41 ; years of travel, 47 ; visits Colmar 1492, 49 ; portrait painted in 1493, H. ; settles in Niirnberg 1494, 51 ; personal appearance described by Came rarius, 51 ; Melanchthon's tribute to his 334 GENERAL INDEX. mental and moral qualities, 52 ; marriage of, 53 ; domestic unhappiness, 55 ; house in Niirnberg, 58; received into guild of painters, 60 ; portrait in UfBzj Gallery at Florence, 61 ; ditto in Pinakothek at Munich, 62 ; de scribes his father's death, 64; journey to Venice, 66 ; learns dancing, 90 ; journey to Bologna, 93 ; quiet work in Nurnberg, 94 ; mother dies, 96 ; exchange of presents with Raphael, 97 ; journey to Augsburg, 99 ; his tory of his sketch-books, 100 ; friends in Niirnberg, 63, 101 ; controversy as to whether he cut his own blocks, 105 ; his coat-of- arms, 148 ; his verses, 247 ; laughed at by Pirkheimer and Spengler, 248 ; visit to the Netherlands 1520, 255 ; his journal a simple record of facts, 256 ; receives letters of in troduction from the Bishop of Bamberg, 259 ; arrives at Antwerp, 265 ; sees the great pro cession, 270; visits Brussels, 273 ; his won der at its wealth, 274 ; returns to Antwerp, 277 ; his generosity in presents, 281; visits Aachen, 282 ; visits Koln, 284 ; obtains his Confirmatia, 285 ; returns to Antwerp, 287 ; visits Zealand, 289 ; narrow escape from drowning, ii. ; returns to Antwerp, 291 ; presents to Niirnberg friends, 296 ; visits Bruges, 298 ; Ghent, 300 ; returns to Ant werp, 301 ; illness in Antwerp and Zealand, ii.; present at Joachim Patenir's wedding, 302 ; indignation at Luther's imprisonment, 303 ; his bad bargains in the Netherlands, 312 ; goes to Brussels, 313 ; from Brussels to Koln, 315; returns to Niirnberg, ii. ; his last letter to the Rath, 322 ; his death, 324 ; his burial and epitaph, ii, ; his in ventory of his effects, 328. Diirer, Albrecht, the Elder, his arrival in Niirn berg, 29 ; his marriage, 31 ; his children, ii. ; his house in the Winkler-strasse, 33 ; arranges his son's wedding, 53 ; death of, 64 ; portraits of, 202. Diirer, Andreas, 65, 97, 329. Diirer, Hans, 65, 97. Diirer, Niclas, 263. E. Ebner, Erasmus, inventor of brass, 7. Engravings on copper, character of Diirer's, 163; value of them, 199. Erasmus, his first meeting with Diirer, 269 ; Diirer's exhortation to him, 305 ; portrait of, 318- Eye, Dr. A. von, his "Leben und Wirken Albrecht Diirers," 32. Fencing, Diirer's book on, 241. Formschneider, or wood-engravers, 105. Fortification, Diirer's book on, 241. Frankfort, Diirer's drawings in, 237 ; visited by Diirer, 261. Frey, Agnes, marries Diirer, 55 ; her suspi cious and fretful temper, ii. ; Pirkheimer's accusation against her, 56, 326 ; story of the spy-hole, 95 ; goes with Diirer to the Nether lands, 259 ; founds a scholarship, 328 ; her last years and death, ii. Frey, Hans, father of Agnes, 53. Friedrich, Elector of Saxony, gives commission for pictures, 208 ; his portrait, 320. Fugger family, one of them introduced in the Feast of Rose Garlands, 204 ; their impor tance in Germany, 265 ; their house in Ant werp, 272. Ghent, visited by Diirer, 300 ; legend of the bridge of, ii. Goldsmiths of Antwerp, entertain Diirer, 293. Goosen, J. van, copies from Diirer, 145. Greff, Hieronymus, pirates the Apocalypse, 120. H. Haller, Hieronymus, Diirer's grandfather, 3°- Hallerin, Barbara, Durer's mother, 31 ; death of, 96. Hele, Peter, inventor of watches, 6. Heller, Jacob, gives commission for picture, 209 ; Diirer's letters to, ib. ; interview with Diirer, at Frankfort, 262. Heller, Joseph, his collection, 100; his "Le ben und Werke Albrecht Diirer," 141. Hess, Martin, painter in Frankfort, 212. Hirschvogel, family of, 7. Hoffer, H. and L., copy from Diirer, 145. Hogarth, W., refers to Diirer's Book of Human Proportions, 245. Holford, Mr. R .S., his collection of Diirer's drawings, 225. Holt, Mr. H. F.,his hypothesis about Diirer's visit to the Netherlands, 256. Holzschuher, Hieronymus, his portrait, 226. Horembout, Gerhard and Susanna, 307. Horse, Durer's Book on the Proportions of the, 241. Human Proportions, Diirer's Book on, 244 ; MS. of, ii.; editions of, 244, 246. Hungersberg, Felix, the lute-player, 279. Imhof, Alexander, lends Diirer money, 312. Imhof, Hans, 212. Imhof, Hieronymus, 74. Imhof family, 232. Imhof, Willibald, his account of his courtship. 54- Jackson, his opinions on wood-cutting, 106. Jamintzer, Wenzel, goldsmith in Nurnberg, 8. Journal of Diirer in the Netherlands, 259. GENERAL INDEX. 335 K. Katzheimer, Hans Wolfgang, 259. Kleeberger, Johann, his portrait, 317. Koburger, his printing-press, 4. Koln (Cologne), visited by Durer, 263. Kraft, Adam, sculptor, 15. Kraus, Ulrich, copies from Diirer, 145. Kratzer, Nicolaus, astronomer, 270. Krell, Oswald, portrait of, 226. Krug, Hanns, die-sinker, 9. Landauer, Matthaus, gives commission for painting of the Trinity, 217. Letters from Venice, 69 ; history of, 68. Letters to Rath, 222, 322. Lindenast, Sebastian and Sebald, workers in copper, 8. Lobsinger, Hans, inventor of the air-gun, 7. Loethener, Stephan (Meister Stephan), 284. Louvre, Durer's drawings in the, 6. Luther, his disapproval of iconoclasm, 242 ; his imprisonment, 303 ; indignation of Diirer at it, ii. M. Mabuse, Jan de, 289. Malcolm, Mr., his collection of Diirer's draw ings, 236. Mantegna, Andrea, his death, 93. Marc Antonio, pirates Diirer's engravings, 141. Margaret, Regent of the Netherlands, 272, 276 ; her ungracious treatment of Diirer, 3°9, 312. Margraff, Dr. R. , his " Kaiser Maximilian und Albrecht Diirer in Nurnberg," 148. Massys, Quentin, 267. Maximilian, Elector of Bavaria, obtains pos session of Coronation of the Virgin, 215 ; of the Four Apostles, 223. Maximilian, Emperor of Germany, alluded to in letter, 8$, 87 ; gives Diirer order on Rath, 99 ; his character, 146 ; grants coat-of-arms to painters' guild, 148 ; Triumphal Arch of, 149 ; payment for ditto, ii. ; Triumphal Car, 157; introduced by Diirer in the Feast of Rose Garlands, 205. Melanchthon, his tribute to Diirer's character, 52 ; his story of Diirer and Maximilian, 147 ; his remarks on Diirer's later style, 221 ; his sympathy with Diirer, 319 ; portrait of, ii. Mensuration, Diirer's Book on, 242. Mexico, treasures from, 274. Michael Angelo, his alabaster figure in Bruges, 299. Middleburg, visited by Diirer, 289, 290. Money, value of, in Netherlands, 265. Morrison, Mr. A., his collection of Durer's drawings, 236. Mulfel, Jacob, portrait of, 318. Muller, Johann (Regiomontanus), 5. Mundler, Herr Otto, note on Madrid por trait, 62; on Mr. Wynn Ellis's picture, 229; on portrait of Stark, 303. Munich, Diirer's drawings in, 237. Murr, G. von, his "Journal zur Kunstge- schichte," 4. Music, Diirer's Book on, 241. N. Nagler, his collection, 100. National Gallery, painting by Diirer in, 228. Netherlands, journey to, 255 ; prosperity of, 275 ; value of money in, 265. Neudbrfier, Johann, his " Nachrichten," 7, 23- Niirnberg at the present day, I ; in the fif teenth century, 2 ; artistic mind of, 3 ; me chanical activity of, 4 ; printing-press in, ii. ; paper-mill in, ii. ; workers in metal of, 7 ; glass-painters of, ii.; goldsmiths of, ii.; wire-drawing in, ii. ; die-sinkers of, 9 ; work men's strikes in, ii. ; government of, 10 ; prosperity of middle classes in, II ; policy ofthe Rath of, ii.; burghers of, 12 ; Gothic architecture of, 13; sculpture of, 14; artist- workmen in, 3, 15; unsettled state of, 46 ; Durer's house in, 58 ; house of the Twelve Brothers in, 217; fortifications of, 243; progress ofthe Reformation in, 316. Nurnberg Chronicle, 43, 107. O. Observatory, constructed by Regiomontanus and Walther, 6. ) Ottley, his testimony about Marc Antonio, 144. P. Painting, Durer's Book on, 242. Paintings, stiffness of Durer's early, 201. Paper-mill, first, in Germany, 4. Passion in copper, series ofthe, 180. Passion, Great, woodcuts of the, 127 ; Latin text of the, 133. Passion, Little, woodcuts of the, 133. Passion, twelve drawings ofthe (Vienna), 231. Patenir, Joachim, 268 ; his wedding, 302. Penz, Georg, his paintings in the Rathhaus, 158. Peurbach, Georg, the astronomer, 5. Pinakothek, Gallery of the, Munich, 220. Piracies of Diirer's works, 141, 145. Pirkheimer, Willibald, birth and education of, 34 ; friendship with Diirer, 38 ; family of, ii. ; his charges against Agnes Frey, 56, 326 ; his brilliant assemblages, 64 ; Durer's letters from Venice to, 69-89 ; his address to the Margrave, 86 ; his plan for Triumphal Car, 157 > suggests Book of Human Proportions, 244 ; Latin elegy on Diirer, 246 ; laughs at Diirer's verses, 248 ; his pail in tlie Reforma- 33<5 GENERAL INDEX. tion, 317 ; portrait of, 320 ; death of, 325 ; tribute to Durer's memory, ii. ; his letter to Tschertte, 326. Planckfelt, Jobst, Diirer's host in Antwerp, 265. Posonyi collection, 239. Printing-press, first, in Nurnberg, 4. R. Raphael Santi, interchange of presents be tween Diirer and, 97. Rath, or Town-Council, of Niirnberg, 9 ; tries to stop piracy of Durer's prints, 145; Diirer's letter to, presenting his painting of Apostles, 222 ; Durer's letter to, about investments, 322 ; mean conduct of, to Durer's widow, 323- Reformation, its progress in Nurnberg, 316. Regiomontanus (see Miiller), 5- Reid, Mr. G. W. 156. Resch, Hieronymus, 108 ; engraves blocks for Arch of Maximilian, 1 54 ; visited by Maximilian, ii. Rogendorff family, 278, 281. Rudolph, anecdote of the Emperor, 196. Ruland, Mr. C, his remark on the Coronation of the Virgin, 210, 216. Russell, Rev. J. Fuller, his painting of the Crucifixion, 229. S. Sachs, Hans, 23. Sacraments-Hauslein, 15. Sandrart, his " Teutsche Akademie,'' 16. Schauffelein, Hans, 294. Schiltkrot, Erasmus, 217. Schlegel, F. von, remarks on Diirer's engrav ings, 163. Schon, Erhard, copies from Diirer, 145. Schon, Martin (see Schongauer), 42. Schongauer, Martin, 42 ; influence of his art on Diirer, 43; his brothers receive Diirer, 49- Schonhofer, Sebald, sculptor in Niirnberg, H- School life in Niirnberg, 35. Sebald, St., shrine of, 1 7. Sickengen, F. von, 171. Sintram, suggested by Diirer's print of the Knight, Death, and Devil, 172. Sloane, Sir Hans, owned some of Diirer's drawings, 233, Solis, Virgil, Nurnberg engraver, 145. Spengler, Lazarus, 101 ; laughs at Durer's verses, 248 ; his part in the Reformation, 3'7- Stabius, crown poet to Maximilian, 149. Stadel Institut, Frankfort, 203. Stark, Lorenz, the treasurer, 302 ; his portrait, ii. Stoss, Veit, 20. Stromer, Ulman, erects first paper-mill in Ger many, 4. Sturm, Gaspar, 283. Sugar, alluded to by Diirer, 295. T. Tedeschi, or guild of German merchants in Venice, give commission to Diirer for pic ture, 69. Thompson, his opinion on the blocks of the Little Passion, 137. Titian, borrowed from Diirer, 186. Tomasin of Lucca, first mentioned, 269. Tschertte, Joh., Pirkheimer's letter to him, 326. U. Uffizj Gallery, at Florence, 204. Van der Goes, Hugo, 276, 299. Van der Weyden, Roger, 273, 299. Van Eyck, Hubert, 299, 300. Van Leyden, Lucas, 309, 311. Van Mander, Karel, 33. Van Orley, Bernard, 276. Vasari, his testimony concerning Marc An tonio, 142 ; his account of Diirer's engrav ings, 163. Velius, Kaspar, his verses on Diirer's Adam and Eve, 208. Venice, journey to, 66 ; fire in, 90 ; painters of, their jealousy of Diirer, 201. Verachter, F., his Dutch translation of Diirer's journal, 280. Vierling, Jorg, punished for libelling Diirer, 99- Vischer, J. C, copies from Diirer, 145. Vischer, Peter, 16 ; his five sons, 17. W. Walther, Bernard, with Regiomontanus, erects first Observatory in Europe, 6. Watches, their invention in Niirnberg, 6. Water-marks on Durer's prints, 199. Whale on coast of Zealand, 288. Wierx, Hieronymus, his copy of the Knight, Death, and Devil, 145. Windsor, Diirer's drawings in, 237. Wine presented to visitors, 264. Wohlgemuth, Michael, 42 ; Diirer's portrait of, 47, 226. Wright, Dr., his translation of Letter viii., 87. Zealand, visited by Diirer, 289 ; whale on the coast of, 288. Zlatko, Georg, gives commission to Diirer for Death of the Virgin, 230. INDEX TO WORKS. WOODCUTS. TAGE Adoration of the Kings, the, 1511 . . 139 Apocalypse, the. Series of Sixteen large Cuts, including Vignette, 1498 (first edition) 108 Christ, large Head of 140 Christopher, St. 151 1 138 Christopher, St. 1525 138 Column, the Great, 15 17 160 Death and the Soldier, 1570 .... 138 Diirer, Portrait of, set. 56 320 Durer's Coat of Arms, 1523 .... 149 Fortifications of Town, (about) 1527 . . 243 Francis, St. receiving the Stigmata . . 139 Gregory, St. Mass of, 1511 138 Holy Family with the Guitar, 15 1 1 . . 139 Jerome, St. in his Chamber, 151 1 . . . 1 38 John the Baptist, his Head delivered to Herodias, 151 1 139 Knights, Three Armed, attacked by Skeletons, 1491 46 Martyrdom of the Ten Thousand Saints, the 208 PACE Maximilian, Apotheosis of 161 Maximilian, Portrait of 161 Maximilian, Triumphal Arch of . . . 149 Maximilian, Triumphal Car of ... 157 Mensuration, Woodcuts for Diirer's Book of 243 Passion, the Great. Series of Twelve large Cuts, including Vignette, 1511 (first edition) 127 Passion, the Little. Series of Thirty- seven small Cuts, including Vignette, 151 1 (first edition) 133 Plague Picture (Pestiild), 1496 ... 61 Rhinoceros, the, 1515 14° Samson killing the Lion 140 Trinity, the, 1511 137 Varnbiihler, Ulrich, Portrait of, 1522 . 320 Virgin, the, crowned by two Angels, 1518 139 Virgin, Life of the. Series of Twenty large Cuts, including Vignette, 151 1 (first edition) 120 ENGRAVINGS AND ETCHINGS. Adam and Eve, 1504 175 Albrecht, Elector of Mainz, Portrait of, 1523 320 Amymone, Rape of 177 Angel bearing the Sudarium (etching) . 1 98 Anthony, St, 1519 198 Apostles, five small Prints of ... . 194 Bagpipe Player, the, 1 5 14 194 Cannon, the Great (etching) . . . . 188 Christ on the Mount of Olives, 1515 (etching) 188 Christ Seated, and Crowned with Thorns, 1515 (etching) 188 Christ with Bound Hands, 1512 ... 186 Christopher, St. two Prints of, 1521 . 321 Chrysostom, St. Penance of .... 174 Coat of Arms with the Cock, the . . 197 Crucifixion, the Little, 1513 . *. . . 188 Dancing Boor and his Wife, the, 15 14 . 194 Death's Coat of Arms, 1503 . . .167,173 Dream, the 178 Erasmus, Portrait of, 1526 . . . . 318 Eustachius, St. (St. Hubert) . . . 194 Family of the Satyr, the, 1505 ... 178 Fortune, the Little 179 Friedrich the Wise, Portrait of, 1524 . 320 Hog, a Prodigious 1 79 Holy Family, with Joseph, the . . . 187 Horse, the Great, 1505 179 Horse, the Little, 1505 179 Jerome, St. 1512 186 Jerome, St. in his Chamber, 1514 . 189 Jerome, St. Penance of 1 74 Jerome, St. the small round, 1513 . 188 Justice (the Nemesis) 179 Knight, Death, and the Devil, the (the Christian Knight), 1513 168 Man, Woman, and Unicom (etching) . 187 Melanchthon, Portrait of, 1526 . . . 318 Melencolia I. 1514 167, 191 Naked Figures, Study of (etching) . . 188 Naked Women, or Witches, Four, 1497 173 X X 338 INDEX TO WORKS. PACE Nativity, the, 1504 175 Nemesis, the (the Great Fortune) . . 196 Offer of Love, the 178 Paris, Judgment of, 1513 . . . : . 188 Passion in Copper, the. Series of Six teen Plates, including Vignette . . . 1 80 Pirkheimer, Portrait of, 1524 .... 320 Prodigal Son, the 176 Promenade, the (the Knight and Lady) . 164 Virgin and Child, with the Monkey, i5°3 '7S Virgin, as Earthly Mother, 1514 ... 193 Virgin, as Queen of Heaven, 15 14 . . 193 Virgin by the Wall, with the Purse, 1514 194 Virgin crowned by One Angel, 1520 . . 198 Virgin crowned by Two Angels, 1518 . 198 Virgin on the Half Moon 1 75 Virgin on the Half Moon, with Crown and Sceptre, 1516 198 Virgin suckling the Child, 1 5 19 . . . 198 Virgin with the Child in Swaddling Clothes, 1520 198 Woman defending herself against an at tempted Rape 178 PAINTINGS. Adam and Eve (Florence) 207 Adam and Eve, 1507 (Madrid) . . . 206 Adoration of the Kings, 1491 (Basel) . 49 Adoration ofthe Kings, 1504 (Florence). 204 Altar-piece, two Wings of (Munich) . . 226 Apostles Peter and John, Paul and Mark, 1526 (Munich) 220 Apostles Philip and James, 15 16 (Flo rence) 204 Baumgartner Altar-piece (Munich) . . 224 Christ mourned by Holy Women (Munich) _. . . . 226 Christ taken down from the Cross (Niirn berg) 227 Crucifixion, the (Rev. J. Fuller Russell) 239 Death of Pirkheimer's Wife, Crescendia Rieterin (water-colour) 74 Diirer, Portraits of : — Described by Goethe, 1493 ... 49 In the Royal Gallery, Madrid . . 62 In the Pinakothek, Munich, 1500 62, 223 In the Uffizj, Florence .... 61 Diirer's Father, Portraits of : — At Florence, 1490 203 At Frankfort, 1494 203 At Munich, 1497 .... 203, 226 At Syon House, 1497 202 Durer's " Meister and Meisterin " at Strasburg, Portraits of 49 Feast of the Rose Garlands, 1506 70, 88, 104 Fiirleger, Catherine, Portrait of, in Mr. Wynn Ellis's collection, 1497 . . . 228 Fiirleger, Catherine, Portrait of, at Frankfort, 1497 . ¦ 229 Holzschuher, Hieronymus, Portrait of (Niirnberg) 226 Kleeberger, Johann, Portrait of, 1526 (Vienna) 317 Krell, Oswald, Portrait of, 1499 (Munich) 226 Lot and his Two Daughters (probably by Patenir) 297 Lucretia (Munich) 226 Martyrdom of the Ten Thousand Saints, 1508 208 Maximilian, Portraits of, ascribed to Diirer 162 Miiffel, Jacob, Portrait of, 1526 (Pom- mersfelden) 318 Painting in the Rathhaus of Niirnberg, ascribed to Diirer 158 Painting on wall of a house in Stein . 67 Senator, Bust Portrait of a, 1514 (National Gallery) 228 Sorrowing Mother of Christ (Munich) . 220 Stark, Lorenz, Portrait of (Madrid) . . 302 Trinity, Adoration of the, 15 1 1 (Vienna) 217 Virgin and Child, 1503 (Vienna) . . . 219 Virgin, Coronation of the 210 Virgin, Death of the, 1518, sold at the Fries Sale 230 Virgin with Cut Lemon (Vienna) . . . 219 Virgin with Cut Pear, 1512 (Vienna) . 219 Wohlgemuth, Michael, Portrait of, 15 16 (Munich) 47, 226 Young Man, Portrait of a, 1500 (Munich) 226 DRAWINGS. Collections of Drawings. Bale, Mr. C. S Bamberg Library . . . Berlin, Royal Museum British Museum .... Burlington Club .... Devonshire, Duke of . . Dresden, Royal Collection Frankfort, Stadel Institut Holford, Mr. R. S. . . . Malcolm, Mr. .... 236 100 237 234236237237 237 236236 Morrison, Mr. A 236 Munich, Pinakothek 237 Paris, Louvre 237 Vienna, Albert Collection 231 Windsor 237 Drawings referred to elsewhere. Bacchanal of ten figures, 1494 (Albert Collection) 60 Christ's Head crowned with Thorns, 1503 (British Museum) 67 Company of Horsemen 47 INDEX TO Diirer, Albrecht, Portrait of, in his thir teenth year, 1484 (Albert Collection) . 36 Diirer, Albrecht, Portrait of, sent to Raphael in 1514 98 Durer's Mother, Portrait of (British Museum) 33 Fight between Tritons, 1494 (Albert Collection) 60 Human Proportions, Drawings for Book of, 1500 (British Museum) .... 246 Landauer, Matthaus, chalk drawing of (formerly in the Imhof Collection) . . 218 Lucretia, study for the head of (British Museum) 226 Maximilian, Portrait of, taken at Augs burg, 15 18 (Albert Collection) . . 99, 161 WORKS. 339 PAGE Maximilian, , Prayer-Book of (Munich and Vienna) 159 Mensuration, Drawing for Book of . . 243 Orpheus abused by the Bacchants ... 60 Passion, Twelve Drawings of the, 1504 (Albert Collection) 231 Plague-stricken Man, the 324 Rhinoceros, the, 1515 (British Museum) 140, 235 Sketch-Books, Durer's (Berlin and Bam berg) 100 Swiss Patriots, the Three 47 Virgin and Child, 1485 (formerly in the Posonyi Collection) 37 Virgin with the Animals, the .... 166 Woman with a Bird (British Museum) . 37 PLASTIC WORKS. Birth of St. John the Baptist, in Hone- Fountain and Winged Love (Dresden) . 239 stone (British Museum) 238 Medals 239 Carvings described by Nagler .... 239 Portraits of Diirer and Agnes Frey in Child, small carved figure of a, alluded wood (formerly in the Posonyi Coll. ) . 239 to in journal 272 Preaching of St. John the Bapiist in the Ecce Homo 239 Wilderness, Hone-stone (Brunswick) . 239 LITERARY WORKS. Architecture, Treatise on 241 Manuscripts in the British Museum . . 247 Fencing, Art of 241 Mensuration, Art of, 1525 242 Fortification, Treatise on (1527) . . . 241 Music, Treatise on 241 Horse, Treatise on the Proportions of the 241 Verses 248 Human Proportions, Book of (1528) . . 244 PAINTINGS, &c. REFERRED TO IN THE JOURNAL. Child's Head 281 Denmark, Portrait of the King of . . 314 Duke, Portrait of a 293 Duke, Portrait of a 302 Jerome, St 296 Maximilian, Portrait ofthe Emperor 308, 312 Planckfelt, Jobst, Portrait of ... . 303 Planckfelt, Jobst, Portrait of the Life of. 303 Reszen, Bernhart, Portrait of ... . 297 Stark, Lorenz, Portrait of 302 Veronica, St 293 Veronica, St. (Replica) 293 Small carved figure of a Child . 272 DRAWINGS REFERRED TO IN THE JOURNAL. Adrian (charcoal) 281 Anthony, Servant of the King of Den mark 313 Antwerp, Sketch in half-colours for the Painters of 268 Banissius (charcoal) 279 Bernhart of Breszlen 290 Bernhart, Painter to Archduchess Mar garet (charcoal) 277 Brand the factor, clerk of (charcoal) . . 298 Braun the physician and his wife (black chalk) 309 Braun and his wife, 2 large sheets (black chalk) 310 Braun (pencil) 310 Brussels, Godmoth. of Durer's hostess in 277 Castell, Bernhart von (charcoal) . . . 294 Child (water-colour drawing) .... 293 Child's Head 308 Child's Head on linen 269 Clausen 29° Conrad, the Sculptor 274 Conrad, the Sculptor 3°9 Cornelius, the Antwerp Secretary (chalk) 296 Denmark, King of (charcoal) . . . . 313 Drawings on linen, three (water-colour) 292 Ebner, Hans (charcoal) 282 Ebner, Hans 282 340 INDEX TO WORKS. PAGE Emmerich, Diirer's host at 287 Enden, Peter von, Diirer's host at Aachen 282 Enden, Peter von, Father-in-law of (charcoal) . 283 Erasmus 277 Ernii, Diirer's host at ,...,. 290 Factor of Portugal (charcoal) .... 267 Federmacher, iPeter 286 Flores, Organist to the Archduchess Margaret (charcoal) 294 Fbrherwerger (charcoal) 285 French Costumes (white and black on grey paper) 307 Frenchman 290 Girl, Sketch of, at Goes, in the costume of the place 289 Groland, Christopher (charcoal) . . . 282 Haller, Niclas (charcoal) 285 Has, Jean de, his wife and two daughters (charcoal), the maid and the old woman (pencil), in sketch-book 289 Haunolt, Anthony (large paper, chalk) . 310 Heads, three (black and white on grey paper) 307 Hochstetter, Ambrose (charcoal) . . . 302 House, Plan for a 281 Hungersberg, Felix, the late player . . 268 Hungersherg, Felix, kneeling (" done with the pen in his own book ").... 288 Italian Gentleman ' 282 Jacob (Jacob Cornells?) (charcoal) . . 309 Jacob, the Rogendorff's Painter (charcoal) 279 Jan, Goldsmith of Brussels (charcoal) . 307 Jan, Goldsmith of Brussels, Wife of . . 307 Jan the Marble Cutter (black chalk) . . 294 Kopfingrin's Sister (charcoal) .... 283 Kopfingrin's Sister (pencil) .... 283 Kdtzler, George 290 Kratzer, Nicolaus, the Astronomer . . 270 Lady of Bruges 282 Lady of Emmerich 286 Lieber, Hans, of Uim (charcoal) . . . 301 Lion at Ghent (pencil) 300 Lubeck, Jacob von (charcoal) .... 279 Lucas of Danzgen (charcoal) .... 298 Maiden, a Beautiful (two drawings in pencil) 295 Man, Arms of a 293 Margaret, Regent of the Netherlands, two drawings for, on parchment . . 281 Marini, Jan, treasurer to Margaret (char coal) 276 Marx, Goldsmith of Bruges (charcoal) . 302 Mount of Olives (two sketches on half- sheets) 307 PAGE Mummeries, Sketch for, for the Fugger's . factor 293 Mummeries, two sheets of, for Tomasin 293 Needlewoman, a 281 Nobleman, an English (charcoal) . . . 307 Nobleman, an English, Coat-of-Arms for, in colours 3°& Opitius, " the Italian with the crooked nose " 269 Patenir, Joachim (pencil) 301 Pfinzing, Mertin (in sketch-book) . . 282 Plaffroth, Hans (charcoal) 270 Planckfelt, Jobst, Diirer's host in Antwerp 267 Planckfelt, Jobst, Arms of 293 Planckfelt, Jobst, Wife of (charcoal). . 292 Ploos, Jan (pencil) 299 Polonius, Thomas, of Rome (charcoal) . 302 Pombelly, Bernard 291 Portuguese, Servant of the (charcoal) . 291 Priick, Jaracott (charcoal) 279 Relinger, Jacob (charcoal) 308 Resurrection, the (three sketches on half-sheets) 307 Roderigo (large sheet, black and white) . 298 Rogendorff Arms (drawn on wood) 278, 279 Rogendorff, Wolff von (pencil) . . . 281 Schalken, Gott, the Sister of . . . . 285 Schlauderspach, George (charcoal) . . 282 Schnabhannen 290 Sebastian the Procurator, the Daughter of 291 Sebastian, the Daughter of (pencil) . . 294 Shield 308 Soiler, Niclas 291 Spaniard, a (charcoal) 279 Stabius, Arms of (on wood) .... 285 Stabius, Arms of 293 Stecher, Bernhart, and his Wife . . . 309 Stecher, Wife of 309 Stecher's Wife's Sister's Daughter . . 310 Steffan the Chamberlain 309 Steffan the Chaplain 288 Sturm 283 Tomasin, the Genoese (charcoal) . . . 269 Tomasin, Jungfrau Suten, Daughter of . 270 Tomasin, Son and Daughter of (charcoal) 293 Tomasin, Vincent and Gerhartus, brothers of (charcoal) 269 Tomasin, Vincentio, brother of 269 Tomasin's House, sketch for (half- colours) 296 Topler, Paulus (in sketch-book) . . . 282 Van Leyden, Lucas (pencil) .... 309 Van Orley, Bernard (charcoal) . . . 277 Virgin, the (small painting on linen) . . 268 Woman's Head, Sketch for the Gold smiths 273 LONDON I R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS. This preservation photocopy was made at BookLab, Inc. in compliance with copyright law. The paper is Weyerhaeuser Cougar Opaque Natural, which exceeds ANSI Standard Z39.48-1984. 1992 lifKUtA^ YALE UNIVERSITY a39002 002388i.l2b