The Identification of a Print Study for a Woodcut in Hieronymus Köler’s Album Amicorum in the British Library Ewa Letkiewicz

The British Library holds a unique collection of autograph albums called Album amicorum (book of friends, in German: Stammbuch ). These are made up of bound sheets of white paper, or sometimes vellum, in which portrait prints and signatures could be collected. They were popular from the mid-sixteenth century onwards, especially in Protestant student circles in Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Hungary, and Scandinavia. The entries in these books were commemorative, most frequently marking graduations. The entries were quotations from the works of ancient authors, adages, sayings and wishes, usually in Latin or Greek, and accompanying illustrations, usually small drawings of emblematic or heraldic subjects, or woodcuts in black and white or colour. Both the owner of the album and the authors of entries went to great lengths in the preparation of texts and illustrations, with the result that today they are of art-historical interest and a source of information about the university life of the times. The practice was described by Philipp Melanchthon, the Reformer and friend of Luther:

These little books certainly have their uses: above all they remind their owners of people, and at the same time bring to mind the wise teaching which has been inscribed in them, and they serve as a reminder to the younger students to be industrious in order that the professor may inscribe some kind and commemoratory words on parting so that they may always prove themselves brave and virtuous during the remainder of their lives, inspired, even if only through the names of good men, to follow their example. At the same time the inscription itself teaches knowledge of the character of the contributor, and quite often significant passages from otherwise unknown and little-read authors are found in albums. Finally, they record biographical details which would otherwise be forgotten. 1

In this essay I will show how it has proved possible to identify a drawing in the Louvre as a print study for a print found in one of these albums in the British Library, Egerton MS. 1184. Egerton MS. 1184, one of the unique albums in the British Library, is undoubtedly one of the oldest and finest. Owned by Hieronymus Köler of Nuremberg (born 1542), the album came to the British Museum Library in 1850, among 322 albums obtained from the extremely valuable legacy of the Nuremberg antiquarian and bibliophile Erhard Christopher Bezzel (1727-1807), a passionate collector of writings and mementoes concerning the history of his home town. 2

1 Quoted by M. A. E. Nickson, Early Autograph Albums in the British Museum (London, 1979), pp. 9-10. 2 Nickson, pp. 14-15.

1 eBLJ 2009, Article 6 The Identification of a Print Study for a Woodcut in Hieronymus Köler’s Album Amicorum in the British Library

The history of Hieronymus Köler’s album begins in the year 1561, when his father, a self- made man who had risen to a high position in the city, sent him to Wittenberg to study, and from there, in 1563 to the University of Tübingen. 3 In the album, which he himself arranged, he collected three hundred entries by his friends and teachers and people of high rank he had contacted in Nuremberg, Wittenberg, Tübingen, Augsburg, Speyer andVienna. The introduction to the album is taken from a Latin poem placed in the Stammbuch owned by Heinrich Moller of Hesse (f. 3rv). Hieronymus Köler copied the poem, adding at the end the Köler family coat of arms (f. 3v), with a Latin motto and an illustration showing Christ and his disciples in a boat during the storm on the sea of Galilee (f. 4r). 4 At the end of the album there is an engraved portrait of Philipp Melanchthon by Albrecht Dürer (f. 210r). Melanchthon described and admired Köler’s album. As the opening entry Köler placed the portrait of the Protestants’ spiritual leader, Martin Luther (f. 1v). One of the first entries in Köler’s book is a dedication with the autograph of the young Mikołaj [Nicholas] Krzysztof Radziwiłł (known as Sierotka, ‘The Orphan’) (1549-1616). 5 Later Grand Marshal of Lithuania, Voivode of the Vilinus voivodship, a memorist, the first entailer of Niasvizh (in Polish: Nie ´s wie z. ), he was the oldest son of Mikołaj the Black and El z. bieta née Szydłowiecka (figs 1 and 2). 6

3 Nickson, p. 14. 4 Quoted in full by Nickson, p. 15 5 The graphic and sculpted portraits of Radziwiłł the Orphan are presented and discussed by T. Bernatowicz, Miles Christianus et Peregrinus. Fundacje Mikołaja Radziwiłła “Sierotki” w Ordynacji Nie´swieskiej (Warsaw, 1998). His portraits on medals have also been preserved. These are mentioned by F. Bentkowski, Spis medalów polskich lub z dziejami krainy polskiej stycznymi (Warsaw, 1835), p. 9, items 28, 29, 30. Medals of ‘the Orphan’ as a child, a young man and an adult are kept in the the Czapski Department at the National Museum in Kraków and discussed by T. Bernatowicz, Monumenta Variis Radivillorum. Wyposaz. enie zamku nie´swieskiego w ´swietle ´zródeł archiwalnych, cz. i, XVI-XVII wieku (Pozna´n , 1998), p. 28, plates 30-34. The metal imprints of three medals of Radziwiłł can be found in the iconographic collection in the National Museum in Warsaw, Polski Słownik Biograficzny , vol. xxx/2, 1987, p. 350. 6 E. Kotłubaj, Galeria nie´s wiez. ska portretów Radziwiłłowskich (Wilno, 1857), pp. 305-19; Polski Słownik Biograficzny , p. 349. On the distaff side he was the only male heir of the Szydłowiecki family which was extinguished with the death of Chancellor Krzysztof Szydłowiecki. Radziwiłł the Orphan inherited the county of Szydłowiec (1557) and the title Count of Szydłowiec from his grandfather. From his father he inherited the title Duke of Ołyka and Nies´ wiez. . Mikołaj the Black was given the title Prince of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation by Emperor CharlesV in 1547, which raised Radziwiłł to the ranks of the European aristocracy. At the same time, by inheritance from Jerzy Illicz, a maternal cousin, he became Count of Mir, Czarnawczyce and Biała: Bernatowicz, Miles Christianus , p. 9.

2 eBLJ 2009, Article 6 The Identification of a Print Study for a Woodcut in Hieronymus Köler’s Album Amicorum in the British Library

Fig. 1. Portrait of Miko łaj Krzysztof Radziwi łł . Egerton MS. 1184, f. 5v

3 eBLJ 2009, Article 6 The Identification of a Print Study for a Woodcut in Hieronymus Köler’s Album Amicorum in the British Library

Fig. 2. Inscription by Miko łaj Krzysztof Radziwi łł . Egerton MS. 1184, f. 6r

4 eBLJ 2009, Article 6 The Identification of a Print Study for a Woodcut in Hieronymus Köler’s Album Amicorum in the British Library

Köler received this entry from the Prince on 15 January 1565. They had met in Tübingen, where they were studying at the time. The portrait is a coloured woodcut, half-length, in three-quarters, facing right. The elements of his attire are shown in detail, as well as his hat, a chain with a medallion around his neck and a book in his hand. In the lower left corner are the initials IZ, which Max Rosenheim interpreted in 1910 as the name of the engraver Jacob Züberlein of Tübingen (1556-1607). 7 Rosenheim’s findings were accepted in Polish literature on the subject. 8 Margaret A. E. Nickson also discusses the coloured portrait of Radziwiłł in her account of Köler’s album amicorum , although no mention is made of the artist or engraver responsible. 9 In the Louvre there is a drawing that corresponds to the engraved portrait of Radziwiłł, but in reverse (fig. 3). 10

Fig. 3. Portrait of Miko łaj Krzysztof Radziwi łł . Musée du Louvre, Département des Arts graphiques, size 14, 5 cm x 10 cm, catalogue no. INV 18707. Inventaire du Département des Arts graphiques, http:// arts-graphiques.louvre.fr/fo/visite?srv=mfc&idFicheOeuvre=108689

It is a portrait of a currently unidentified young man, on cardboard, in pencil, pen, and black ink. The signature DK appears in the lower right hand corner of the portrait and the drawing is identified as the work of David Kandel (1520-1592), a wood engraver from Strasbourg who was active from 1538. Again the drawing is a three-quarter portrait of a young man, shown from the waist upwards. He is holding a small book in his hands, which are resting on a writing desk (or window sill). 11 What is striking about the drawing is that some particulars have been executed in more detail than others, with the hat and face carefully drawn. The artist has meticulously captured the detail of the decorative cord adorning the hat. Apart from depicting the sitter’s distinctive features, the artist has also rendered his character. The young man’s stiff pose, his cold countenance and pouting lower lip all serve to give the impression that he is proud and distant. The remaining details have been drawn only very sketchily and only a few particulars have been included, such as the embroidery on the sleeve, the decorative links of the chain and the jewel hanging around the young man’s neck (which has been copied and magnified in the upper left corner of the drawing). All these qualities give the impression that this is a sketch for a portrait, or print study, rather than a finished product. These assumptions would seem reasonable when comparing the portrait drawing of the anonymous young man in the Louvre with another example of the finished woodcut portrait of the young Mikołaj Krzysztof Radziwiłł, to be found in a volume of Greek poems by Martinus Crusius, Martini Crusii Poematum graecorum libri duo, addita eregione partim ipsius conversione partim Leonardi Engelhardi, partim Erhardi cellii, carmine latino , published in Basle by Oporinus in 1566 (fig. 4). 12

7 M. Rosenheim, ‘The Album Amicorum’, Archaeologia: or Miscellaneous Tracts Relating to Antiquity , lxii, (1910), p. 251. 8 Marian Chachaj, Zagraniczna edukacja Radziwiłłów od poczatku XVI do połowy XVII wieku (Lublin, 1995), ` p. 22; Bernatowicz, Miles Christianus , p. 134. 9 Nickson, Early Autograph Albums , p. 15, plate 4 (black and white reproduction of the colour portrait). 10 Musée du Louvre, Département des Arts graphiques, size 14.5 cm x 10 cm, catalogue no. INV 18707. 11 The Louvre portrait was published by Yvonne Hackenbroch, Renaissance Jewellery (München, 1979), p. 102, plate 261. 12 Chachaj, p. 22. The portrait is reproduced by K. Piekarski, Katalog Biblioteki Kórnickiej , vol. i, Polonica XVI- go wieku ([Kraków], 1929), p. 57.

5 eBLJ 2009, Article 6 The Identification of a Print Study for a Woodcut in Hieronymus Köler’s Album Amicorum in the British Library

Fig. 4. Portrait of Miko łaj Krzysztof Radziwi łł . Marcin Crusius, Poemata graecorum ... addita conversione L. Engelhardi et E. Celli ... (Basle, 1566).

6 eBLJ 2009, Article 6 The Identification of a Print Study for a Woodcut in Hieronymus Köler’s Album Amicorum in the British Library

This woodcut is well known. 13 The coloured version of Radziwiłł’s portrait in Eg. 1184 differs from the black and white woodcut in Crusius only in that it has a different inscription. In the black and white version it reads: IMAGO ILLUSTRISS. PRIN-cipis & Domini, D. NICOLAI CHRISTO-PHORI Radziuuili, Ducis Olicae & Nies-uuisij, Comitis in Schidlo-uuietz . The coloured version reads in manuscript: VIVA IMAGO ILLUSTRISSIMI PRIN-CIPIS & DOMINI, DOMINI NICOLAI CHRISTO-PHORI RADZICVVIL, DVCIS OLICAE ET NIESVVISI &c . One fundamental difference between the woodcuts and the drawing is the arrangement of the hands. In the Louvre drawing, the young man is holding a book with both hands, however in the woodcut portraits the ornamentation on the cover of the book is visible and it is held in his right hand only, while his left hand rests lightly on the desk or sill. Despite these minor, formal differences, there is no doubt that the portrait in the Louvre is a depiction of the young Prince Radziwiłł the Orphan, and that it was a preliminary sketch for the woodcut portrait. Another important difference between the woodcuts and the drawing is the signature. As previously mentioned, the monogram on the Louvre drawing is composed of the overlapped letters D and K, which are identified with David Kandel. However, in the bottom left corner of the woodcuts the monogram IZ (or ZI) appears. The engraved portrait is, in all probability, the one referred to in correspondence, housed in Poland, between Mikołaj Radziwiłł the Black and his son Mikołaj Krzysztof. 14 He wrote letters to his son, whom he sent in 1563 to study at Strasbourg, accompanied by a large retinue. At that time the University of Strasbourg was one of the most important Protestant academic centres, and students from the whole of Europe flocked there. The young magnate began his studies under the direction of Jan Sturm, a famous humanist and pedagogue who was presented with a letter of recommendation from the young Radziwiłł’s father. He spent more than a year there (from August 1563 to November 1564) and made his first contacts with academics and some of the most notable local figures. Because of the plague he left the city for Tübingen. The young Prince’s studies abroad were to prepare him for a career in politics and at court. 15 In 1564, at his father’s request, the young Radziwiłł commissioned a portrait of himself, which was intended for the Castle atVilnius. 16 His father was not happy with the portrait and — judging by his reaction — the comments he made related to the portrait known from the woodcut in Crusius’s Poemata and in Köler’s album amicorum . On seeing his son depicted in an elegant and fashionable hat, wearing a gold chain around his neck, Mikołaj the Black criticized the portrait as being in accordance with the bourgeois tastes of Baltazar Lewaldt-Jezierski, the steward who accompanied his son, and who told him to commission ‘a new gold chain with the king’s face’. He probably had in mind a medallion which had been sent earlier with a likeness of the king ‘under the shield of the Lithuanian coat of arms beneath the Lithuanian helm, even though it includes the Eagle placed next to the White Knight (Pogo ´n)’. 17

13 Chachaj, p. 22. The black and white version of the colour portrait can be found in H. Barycz, Jan Łasicki. Studium z dziejów polskiej kultury naukowej XVI wieku (Wrocław etc., 1973), engraving 11. 14 M. Radziwiłł the Black to his son ‘the Orphan’, Brzes´c´c 15 IX 1564, Pozna´n , Miejska Biblioteka Publiczna im. E. Raczyn´ skiego, 78, k. 41, r.-v., cited after M. Chachaj, p. 22. 15 M. Chachaj, p. 22; J. Jasnowski, Mikołaj Radziwiłł Czarny (1515-1565). Kanclerz i marszałek ziemski Wielkiego Ksiestwa Litewskiego, wojewoda wile´n ski (Warsaw, 1939), pp. 381-4; Bernatowicz, Miles Christianus , ` p. 9. Radziwiłł the Orphan was to be his successor, the most important person in Lithuania. He made a career thanks to his father’s position as confidant to King Zygmunt August. 16 Jasnowski, p. 383. Mikołaj the Black, the Prince’s father, began collecting portraits, first in Nie´swiez. , later in Vilnius: Bernatowicz, Miles Christianus , p. 134. 17 Jasnowski, pp. 382-3.

7 eBLJ 2009, Article 6 The Identification of a Print Study for a Woodcut in Hieronymus Köler’s Album Amicorum in the British Library

Let us, however, take a closer look at the portrait of the prince and the surmised artists. Despite the sketchiness of the portrait, David Kandel’s light and delicate drawing, the subtlety and precision of the lines, the realism, and accurate psychological characterization, make it close to being one of the best renditions of this type of art. Portraits executed in pencil, ink, sanguine, and in particular in coloured chalk, belonged to a type popularized in artistic circles in Italy, the Netherlands, Germany and France in the sixteenth century. 18 The coloured pencil technique was highly valued in portraiture because it could be used to create a realistic effect Very little is known about David Kandel’s life although his work ranks highly among the achievements of engravers who were active in the mid-sixteenth century. 19 He was born in 1520, the son of a citizen of Strasbourg, and it is possible that he too was born in Strasbourg. He married in 1554 20 and in 1587 he is documented as the owner of a house. He died in 1592. 21 He is the author of a number of portraits, a few biblical scenes, studies of animals (fig. 5) — mainly in the Cosmographia of Sebastian Münster, 22 — topographical plans and many priceless maps. His crowning achievement, however, was the set of botanical woodcuts which he provided in 1546 to illustrate Hieronymus Bock’s Kreuter buch , containing 550 woodcuts of herbs, plants and trees (fig. 6). 23 These exquisite, meticulously executed woodcuts became the standard reference work for botanical artists in subsequent centuries.

18 T. Pignati, Historia rysunku. Od Altamiry do Picassa (Warsaw, 2006), pp. 74-144. 19 Often confused with another artist from Strasbourg, David Kannel, active in the 1530s (1537), Hollstein’s German Engravings, Etchings and Woodcuts (1400-1700) , vol. 15 B, Baltasar Jenichen to David Kandel , ed. Tilman Falk (Blaricum, 1986), p. 245. 20 J. E. Gérock, ’Un Artiste strasbourgeois du XVIe siécle David Kandel’, Archives Alsaciennes d’Histoire de l’Art , ii (1923), pp. 84, 86. 21 Hollstein’s German Engravings , p. 217. In the older literature David Kandel’s date of birth is given as 1538, and 1587 as his date of death: see Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart , vol. xix (Leipzig, 1926), p. 514. 22 Gérock, p. 88. 23 Ibid., pp. 86-90.

8 eBLJ 2009, Article 6 The Identification of a Print Study for a Woodcut in Hieronymus Köler’s Album Amicorum in the British Library

Fig. 5. David Kandel, Rhinoceros. Sebastian Münster, Cosmographia (Basle, 1578), p. mcccl. 569.h.25

9 eBLJ 2009, Article 6 The Identification of a Print Study for a Woodcut in Hieronymus Köler’s Album Amicorum in the British Library

Fig. 6. David Kandel, Pear tree. Hieronymus Bock, Kreuter buch (Strasbourg, 1546), Book III, f. xli r. 440.m.10.

10 eBLJ 2009, Article 6 The Identification of a Print Study for a Woodcut in Hieronymus Köler’s Album Amicorum in the British Library

His works are often associated with the monogram DK, enclosed within two miniature stars — one on either side of the monogram (fig. 5). His works are often signed with the single letter D. The artist whom Max Rosenheim surmised may have been the author of the portrait of the young Prince Radziwiłł was Jacob Züberlein (1556-1607). 24 Züberlein was born in Heidelberg in 1556, 25 so would have been barely eight years old in 1564 when the portrait of Radziwiłł was drawn. Although in later years he became famous as an artist and engraver and worked, among others, for Prince Louis von Württemberg, 26 it is highly unlikely that he could have been the author of such a realistically drawn portrait at such a young age. We can now assume that the engraver who executed the woodcut should be sought in the circle of David Kandel, the author of the preliminary sketch for the portrait of Mikołaj Krzysztof Radziwiłł. In those times, master wood engravers employed pupils to prepare the blocks (German: Formschneider ) in their workshop, whose task it was to carve out on blocks of wood the drawings produced by the artists. From what we know today about David Kandel’s work, it transpires that his workshop employed several engravers, who placed their own monograms next to the master’s monogram (DK) on any work that they were commissioned to do. 27 These include the following: FO, the author of, among others, The Sacrifice of Abraham, Lot and His Daughters, and the Portrait of Jacob Sturm , all of which were executed after drawings by Kandel; 28 IC [Jacob Clauser], the author of several prints for the Genealogical Tree of Frederick Prince of the Palatine , which was designed by Kandel. 29 Others also worked on this particular print, including ZSP [Zacharias Speckle] 30 , HS 31 and HVBV. 32 Another unknown engraver, bearing the monogram CS, also carved blocks according to drawings executed by Kandel; these included the panoramas of Lüneburg and Lubeck, and a map of Constantinople. 33 The monogramist IZ (or ZI) who cut the portrait of Mikołaj Radziwiłł the Orphan, after a drawing by Kandel, can now also be added to this list. The discovery in the Louvre of a print study for the British Library portrait of Mikołaj Krzysztof Radziwiłł, the rejection of Jacob Züberlein as its author, and its identification with the circle of artists and cutters working for David Kandel, broaden our knowledge about the legacy of this eminent artist from Strasbourg and his workshop.

24 Rosenheim, p. 251. 25 Allgemeines Lexikon , vol. lxiii, p. 580. 26 Ibid., pp. 580-1. 27 Hollstein’s German Engravings , pp. 217-45. 28 Ibid., pp. 218, 219, 226. 29 Ibid., p. 220. 30 Ibid. 31 Ibid. 32 Ibid. 33 Ibid, pp. 233, 238, 239, 241.

11 eBLJ 2009, Article 6