Featured 2 Albums with early German woodcuts (1490-1600).

Today I had a day off so I removed all the prints from the album. Half of them were loose already anyway. Now I have a pile of old prints and two empty albums.



I have ordered acid-free sleeves to protect them. The albums were not good for the prints.


I go through all the prints and I discovered a lot of artists. Here is a list of the artists I have identified so far.

Jost Amman
Peregrino da Cesena
Joos de Damhouder
Niklaus Manuel Deutsch
Albrecht Dürer
Jörg Breu the Elder
Sebastian Franck
Hendrick Goltzius
Hans Holbein
Cristoffel Jaegher
Thielman Kerver
Lucas Kilian
Jacob Leiderlein
Johannes Meyer
Erhard Reuwig
Hans Schaufelein
Virgil Solis
Hans Springinklee
Heinrich Vogtherr
Hanz Weiditz
Michael Wolgemut
Anton Woensam von Worms

 

Hendrick Goltzius is a very big name. What have you got by him?

It's said that, as a child, he was in a fire that left his hand crippled... but crippled in such a way that it was perfect for holding a burin. He is a major name in engraving.

Glotzius' right hand:

 

This seems to be by Goltzius. It is from this book at page 73.

And this a an advertisement where they sell a similar print:

https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/Bo...tzius&sortby=17&cm_sp=snippet-_-srp1-_-image7

 

Really great woodcuts, but your attribution to Springinklee is not correct.

Koberger and Saccon published many bibles with woodcuts from 1512 until the 1520s. First with woodcuts loosly based on the famaous Malermi Bible from 1490, in 1519 most of those woodcuts were replaced by woodcuts from Schön and Springinklee. The woodcut by Springinklee is shown here https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1927-0614-288.
The original version from 1512 looks a bit different too. in the 1520s Jean Marechal published bibles which have woodcuts very similar to the cuts of the 1512 version of Koberger. I found your woodcut with the same border and defect in my bible printed by Marechal in 1527. You have to be very careful with illustrations, there are many copies, most not as good as the original and not as valuable.

 

Thank you for your correction! Remember I am a noob in this area and I learn every day! I have some bibles and other religious books with illustrations, but than it is easy to get the artist.

 

Now I don't know what to think of the Glotzius, because the surround looks the same, but the center portrait is clearly different. It was frequent practice for the main subject to be done by the principle artist and the surround to be by a lesser hand. It is also possible that the same surround was used multiple times for different portraits from different hands. You certainly have your research cut out for you. The devil is in the details.

 

Thank you for your remark! Do you look at the picture in the advertisement or in the book? I added the advertisement to make the link between another woodcut/copper engraving in the book and Goltzius.

Because I cannot see any difference between the one on page 73 in the book and mine, except the hand coloring. You even see the manicula (pointing hands) and the years under the green.

 

I looked at the picture in the advertisement... so, my bad.

However, what I said about the surround holds true as can be seen in this book where it occurs multiple times with differing portraits.

I also have to wonder if either the surrounds or the portraits are by Glotzius. He was a master, famous in his own day. These don't seem particularly masterful to me. He was also a publisher who operated a workshop.

https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/golt/hd_golt.htm

His name is not standing out to me on the title page or elsewhere. Do you see it? Other copies (editions?) of the book that I see online do not mention Glotzius, neither as publisher nor illustrator.

 

I looked online for this print and may have found it:


Another very well-known name:
Matthaus Merian the Elder (1593-1650)
Spanish Armada

https://www.schilbantiquarian.com/p...-creation-persia-rome-merian-illustrated-war/

 

Thank you for discovering this print! The print and artist are correct, but not the edition (1743), so I looked up the correct edition, making use of the reverse of the print. I believe it is from the 1674 edition or a similar one:

https://www.google.nl/books/edition...rckwürdigsten+Geschichte&printsec=frontcover

Page 978


Page 977




This is one of the latest print in time in the collection, more in a baroque art style. So now I have Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque in the collection .

 

In the collection I have found 3 printing techniques so far: Woodcut, Metalcut and copper engraving.

Woodcut, metalcut and copper engraving are all printmaking techniques that use different materials and methods to create images.

Woodcut is a technique where an artist carves an image into a block of wood, leaving the parts that will print raised. The block is then inked and pressed onto paper or fabric. Woodcut is one of the oldest and simplest forms of printmaking.

Metalcut is a technique that is similar to woodcut, but uses a thin metal plate instead of a wooden block. The plate can be cut away or hammered with punches to create the image. Metalcut was mostly used in the 15th and 16th centuries for religious or ornamental prints. There are two types of metalcut: one that looks like a normal woodcut with black lines on a white background, and another that uses white dots or patterns on a black background, called the dotted manner.

Copper engraving is a technique where an artist uses a sharp tool called a burin to scratch lines into a polished copper plate. The plate is then coated with ink and wiped clean, leaving ink only in the engraved lines. The plate is then pressed onto paper, transferring the image. Copper engraving allows for more detail and precision than woodcut or metalcut, and was widely used for illustrations and maps from the 16th to the 19th centuries.

A woodcut dated 1493 from Schedel's Liber Chronicarum. A woodcut was fairly easy to make, but didn't last long in the print process.



This is a combination of a woodcut (the image) and a woodcut (border) in
Geystliche Lieder by Martin Luther (1564). Metalcuts were often made by silversmiths and were very durable.



This is a copper engraving that I haven't identified yet. You see they can make the lines much thinner than a woodcut and it is easier to make them compared to a metalcut.

 

I don't know who did the engraving (I think it's an etching), and I'm not certain of the subject, but I think it illustrates Revelation Chap 7. The text seems to refer to "twelve times twelve", which is twelve thousand from each of the twelve tribes of Israel, with the seal of God marked on their foreheads (see the nearest of the figures).

Irrelevant to the ID of the print: this is the passage that gives rise to the phrase "washed in the blood of the lamb".

 

Pfff, I’m exhausted. I try to organize the prints and I started to scan the front and reverse of every print. That is quite a task with 350 prints. Next I want to describe them briefly and add info like: technique, book of origine, artist, age.

My problem are the never ending rabbit holes. I guess I am too curious. I want to identify all the prints, but I know that is impossible.

When I started this project, I hoped the most prints were from a relative small number of books and artists. I am afraid that is not the case. I guess the number of books at the end could be between 50 and 100.
This project is massive!

 

You are probably right, I changed it to another one.

 

I'm sure you've seen this on the last:

https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/Bo...&tn=prophetiae&cm_sp=snippet-_-srp1-_-image16



Not the same print, but certainly the same imagery, and gives a context.

 

Yes, I have probably found the original book (Page 459).





All together I have made quite some progress. I am very busy now with scanning and trying to identify the prints.

This is the result so far (after researching 196/~350 of the prints, I can identify about 75%):


The not identified book illustrations are mostly Bible illustrations as I identify the prints mostly by the text on the reverse via Google Books. That is much more reliable than other methods, I found out.



Trying to organize myself in Excel

 

Not to increase the burden, but you might want to check for watermarks as well.

 

If you post pictures of the bible illustations, I could identify them for you

 

I will collect them when I finish the scans an post them here. Thanks in advance!