chapter 9 Hans Wechtlin and the Production of German Colour Woodcuts1

Alice Klein

In the eighteenth century, the prolific German scholar and Röttinger’s assumption has been unanimously dis- art historian Christoph Gottlieb von Murr held Hans missed.6 By now, it has been accepted that single-sheet Wechtlin, a painter active in between 1506 and were first printed with tone blocks in 1508, nei- 1519, as the inventor of the so-called ‘’ printmak- ther in Strasbourg nor in Wittenberg, but in Augsburg,7 ing technique.2 Wechtlin was obviously the most prolific and that book illustrations were printed with tone blocks colour printmaker in the first two decades of the sixteenth in Augsburg from the 1480s.8 Furthermore, as early as 1923, century as, of the thirty or so colour woodcuts printed on Karl Theodore Parker, future Keeper of the Ashmolean single sheets in Germany, twelve belong to his corpus.3 In Museum, Oxford, underlined the significance of Paul the first half of the twentieth century, Heinrich Röttinger, Kristeller’s discovery of a copy of the frame of Wechtlin’s the main authority on Wechtlin at the time, upheld von colour Skull Within an Ornamental Frame, in a Murr’s theory but also suggested that Wechtlin had per- book printed by Jacob Köbell in 1513:9 the model, Wechtlin’s fected the ‘chiaroscuro’ woodcut technique around 1505 woodcut, must have been printed before 1513. In this light and passed it onto Lucas Cranach in 1506 during a visit to and since he could find no obvious difference in style Wittenberg.4 This would have made Wechtlin the pioneer between Wechtlin’s few accurately dated colour woodcuts of ‘fine art’ colour printmaking; Cranach printed the cele- and the ‘normal’ woodcuts he made between 1506 and brated ‘first’, the St George and the Dragon from a key block 1508, Parker dated all the colour woodcuts signed with his in black and a highlight block (not a tone block) in gold on monogram I°V between 1510 and 1512.10 blue prepared paper, in Wittenberg in 1507, to which the Even if Parker’s dating can be accepted, it must be clari- Augsburg artist Hans Burkgmair responded in 1508 by pro- fied. Research has not advanced significantly; this paper is ducing woodcuts of Maximilian I on Horseback and St George on Horseback in nearly the same technique. Later that year, 6 Several art historians demonstrated that, on the contrary, they were issued in their second state with the highlights cut Wechtlin’s image was after Marcantonio or that they were after a out from a tone block.5 common model. See P. Kristeller, ‘Carpi, Ugo da’, in U. Thieme and F. Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der Bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, 37 vols. (Leipzig: Seemann, 1907– 1 Translated from French into English by Marie Canard. 62), 6: 48; A. Oberheide, Der Einfluss Marcantonio Raimondis auf 2 This term is frequently used to refer to all colour woodcuts that are die nordische Kunst des 16. Jahrhunderts (Hamburg: Schimkus, designed to give a three-dimensional effect, but it is not used in 1933), 136. See also G. Bartrum, ed., German Renaissance Prints, this text because it was not the contemporary term. Both its first 1490–1550, exh. cat. (London: Press, 1995), 66. recorded use in archival sources in 1516 (after the terminus ante 7 On an earlier approach to colour printmaking, see A. Stijnman and quem of the prints discussed in this chapter) and its first printed E. Savage (formerly Upper), ‘Color Prints before Erhard Ratdolt: use in 1550 were in Italian texts that referred to the imitation of Engraved Paper Instruments in Lazarus Beham’s Buch von der Italian chiaroscuro drawing. As no generic term seems to have Astronomie (Cologne: Nicolaus Götz, c.1476)’, Gutenberg Jahrbuch been used in German for centuries, ‘colour woodcut’ is used in this (2014), 86–105. On the ‘invention’ in 1508 or 1510, see E. Savage, book. For details, see E. Savage, ‘Colour Printing in Relief’, this ‘Colour Printing in Relief’, this volume, 27–28; A. Grebe, ‘Dürer in ­volume, 23–24. Chiaroscuro’, this volume, 171–73. 3 C.G. von Murr, Journal zur Kunstgeschichte und zur allgemeinen 8 D. Landau and P. Parshall, The Renaissance Print, 1470–1550 (New Litteratur, 2. Teil (Nuremberg: Eberhard, 1776), 147. The twelve, of Haven, London: Yale University Press, 1994), 197–98. which all but one of which are signed with his monogram I°V, are 9 K.T. Parker, ‘Quelques dessins de l’école alsacienne du xve et du reproduced in W.L. Strauss, Clair-Obscur: Der Farbholzschnitt in xvie siècle’, Archives alsaciennes d’histoire de l’art, 2me Année Deutschland und den Niederlanden im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert (1923), 74. The copy of the frame is the frontispiece to J. Stöffler, (Nuremberg: Carl, 1973), nos. 19–30. Elucidatio Fabricae Ususque Astrolabii (Oppenheim: Köbel, 4 H. Röttinger, ‘Hans Wechtlin und der Helldunkelschnitt’, Gutenberg- dated 1512 in the colophon and 1513 in the title border), vd16 Jahrbuch (1942–43), 107–13. Röttinger was convinced that Wechtlin’s S 9191. Parker accepted the year 1512, but today most library cata- first chiaroscuro woodcut print was Pyramus and Thisbe, and that it logues use 1513. had been printed before 1505, when made a 10 More specifically, but without justifying it, Parker put forward print that (Röttinger claimed) was after it. the date of 1510 for the colour woodcuts Christ on the Cross and 5 See A. Grebe, ‘Dürer in Chiaroscuro’, this volume, 171–73. St Jerome.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015 | doi 10.1163/9789004290112_011 104 Klein the first published study that is based on a complete survey A new terminus ante quem can be given to one of of Wechtlin’s known colour woodcuts (Table 9.1 and Table Wechtlin’s colour woodcuts, and to possibly two others. 9.2).11 It reveals that some survive in several palettes and A copy of Virgin and Child in a Frame appears in a book states (combinations of blocks) that were printed at differ- printed in Lyon by Johann Clein in July 1511.13 Wechtlin’s ent times, and a close look at these copies provides new woodcut must have been on the market no later than the information not only about their production, but also beginning of 1511 and thus made beforehand. This termi- about how this new printmaking technique was passed nus ante quem could also be relevant for the first state (i.e., from Augsburg to Strasbourg and thus the chronology of from two blocks) of St Sebastian and The Crucifixion the invention and dissemination of early colour printmak- because many similarities between the three indicate that ing. The thorough study of all stylistic and distinctive tech- they were conceived of and elaborated as a series:14 they nical features in Wechtlin’s woodcuts forces the reconsid- are all illustrations of religious subject-matters, framed eration of a hypothesis that has regularly resurfaced in with the same ornamental strips in the same dimensions. (brief) texts since the 1980s, i.e. that Wechtlin learnt the Two others must have also belonged to that series: St technique from its first producers in Augsburg in 1508.12 Jerome in the Desert and St Christopher survive only in three- block impressions, like the second state of Virgin and Child in a Frame (Fig. 9.1), St Sebastian and The Crucifixion. In this Dating Wechtlin’s Colour Prints state of all five prints, the central scenes are no longer framed with ornamental strips, the prints are the same dimensions, The limited literature on Wechtlin’s colour woodcuts and the third block, which is printed in the darkest ink, largely consists of speculation about its dates of produc- serves the same secondary purpose of adding insignificant tion. New research allows us to date them with more visual information (such as the leafless branches right of the certainty, however, and explains aspects of their original holy martyr in St Sebastian) and primary purpose of bring- (and subsequent) production that have puzzled scholars. ing details into relief. For example, in the trees of the land- scape in the background of St Jerome, the new black lines are only superimposed on the conifer outlines already provided 11 It is derived from unpublished research in A. Klein, ‘Hans in dark grey by the first block. Hence, one can assume that Wechtlin, peintre à Strasbourg à la veille de la Réforme’ (Hans the third block was added to make up for the worn first Wechtlin, Painter in Strasbourg at the Dawn of the Reformation) block. Thus, there were probably a first state of St Jerome in (PhD diss., University of Paris iv-Sorbonne, 2014), which is the the Desert and St Christopher, framed in the same ornamen- first modern assessment of all of Wechtlin’s artistic production. tal strips as Virgin and Child in a Frame, St Sebastian and The 12 O. Pannewitz, Die Renaissance im deutschen Südwesten: zwischen Reformation und Dreissigjährigem Krieg, exh. cat. (Karlsruhe: Crucifixion and also printed from two blocks around 1510 Badisches Landesmuseum, 1986), notice F27, p. 393, and C. Kemmer, (Table 9.1), and the second states of these five colour wood- Von Cranach bis Baselitz: Meisterwerke des Clairobscur-Holzschnitts, cuts were thus certainly printed (long) after 1510. exh. cat. (Braunschweig: Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum, 2003), 21. As to the seven other colour woodcuts signed with the Both Pannewitz and Kemmer suggest that Wechtlin had learnt the monogram I°V, Parker rightly emphasised their stylistic chiaroscuro woodcut technique from blockcutter Jost de Negker. similarities. Moreover, those with classical iconography But it should not be overlooked that nothing proves that De Negker (Pyramus and Thisbe, and Alcon Slaying the Serpent, was already in Augsburg in 1508. ’s prints only men- Fig. 9.2) have the same dimensions as Virgin and Child on a tion his name from 1511 onwards and it only appears in the town Grassy Bank and those with secular iconography (Knight records from 1512 onwards. The many theories of De Negker’s involvement in Burgkmair’s ‘inventions’ in both 1508 and 1510 are and Halberdier, Skull Within an Ornamental Frame). On the discussed at length (and dismissed) in E. Savage (formerly Upper), basis of stylistic analysis and their similar format, I suggest ‘Printing Colour’ in the Age of Dürer: German ‘Chiaroscuro’ that they were created between 1510 – most likely to be the Woodcuts, 1487–ca.1600’, 3 vols. (PhD diss., University of Cambridge, year for the first-state impressions of the five other colour 2012) 1: 60–80. It is also possible that other blockcutters elaborated woodcuts – and 1513 – the year a copy of the frame of Skull the colour woodcut technique with Burgkmair, among whom Wolfgang Resch, who lived at the painter’s house in 1508, and Cornelius Liefrinck, who cut the block for The King of Cochin that 13 Frontispiece to Hortulus Animae (Lyon: Clein, 1511). See: same year. On blockcutters cooperating with Burgkmair, see M.C. Oldenbourg, Hortulus animae [1494]–1523: Bibliographie R. Kroll, ‘Druckstöcke zu den Holzschnitten’, in Hans Burgkmair, und Illustration (Hamburg: Hauswedell, 1973), 100–02. 1473–1531: Holzschnitte, Zeichnungen, Holzstöcke, Berlin, Kupferstich­ 14 On the issuing of colour woodcuts in editions in sixteenth- kabinett und Sammlung der Zeichnungen (Berlin: Staatliche century Italy, see L. Morenus, ‘Chiaroscuro Woodcut Printmaking’, Museen, 1974), 38. this volume, 123–39.