Recent Interest in Martin Schöngauer--A graceful Primitive--Dürer
the exponent of the fuller Renaissance--Some principal Dürers--Their
prices at the Fisher Sale--German “Little Masters”--The Ornament
of Aldegrever--The range of the Behams--Altdorfer--Other Little
Masters--And Lucas Van Leyden.
Among the least reprehensible, and also among the least widely
diffused, of the recent fads of the collector, there is to be reckoned
a certain increase in the consideration accorded to the work of Martin
Schöngauer. If Martin Schöngauer’s ingenious and engaging plates--naïve
in conception, and, in execution, dainty--came ever to be actually
preferred to the innumerable pieces which attest the potency and the
variety of Dürer, that preference might possibly be explained, but
could never be justified. As it is, however, no reasonable admirer
of “the great Albert” can begrudge to one who was after all to some
extent his predecessor, and not in all things his inferior, the
honourable place which, after many generations of comparative neglect,
that predecessor has lately taken, and now seems likely to hold.
Schöngauer, even more it may be than Albert Dürer himself, was, as it
were, a path-breaker. The interest of the Primitive belongs to him;
and the interest of the simple. Some of his religious conceptions
were expressed in prettier form--and form on that account more readily
welcomed--than any that was taken on by the conceptions of the giant
mind that even now draws us upon our pilgrimage to Nuremberg, as Goethe
draws us to Weimar. The Virgin of Schöngauer is more acceptable to
the senses than the average Virgin of Dürer, whose children, on the
other hand (see especially the delightful little print, _The Three
Genii_, Bartsch 66), have the larger lines and lustier life of the full
Renaissance. A touch of what appeals to us as a younger naïveté, and a
touch of what appeals to us as elegance, are especially discernible in
the earlier artist’s work; and that work too, or much of it, has often
the additional attractiveness of exceptional scarcity. Likewise, it is
to most of us less familiar. But when all these elements of attraction
have been allowed for, the genius of Albert Dürer--so much deeper
and so much broader, at once more philosophical and more dramatic,
and expressed by a craftsmanship so much more changeful and more
masterly--the genius of Albert Dürer dominates. If our allegiance has
wavered, if we have been led astray for a period, by Martin Schöngauer
himself, it may be, or by somebody less worthily illustrious, we shall
return, wearily wise, to the author of the _Melancholia_ and the
_Nativity_, of the _Knight of Death_ and of _The Virgin by the City
Wall_. To study long and closely the work of the original engravers, is
to come, sooner or later, quite certainly to the conclusion that there
are two artists standing above all the rest, and that it was theirs,
pre-eminently, to express, in the greatest manner, the greatest mind.
One of these two artists, of course, is Rembrandt. And the other is
Dürer.
[Illustration:
DÜRER: _The Little White Horse_.
]
Adam Bartsch, working at Vienna, in the beginning of this century,
upon those monumental books of reference which, as authorities upon
their wide subject, are even now only partially displaced, catalogued
about a hundred and eight metal plates as Albert Dürer’s contribution
to the sum of original engraving. The Rev. C. H. Middleton-Wake,
working in 1893--and profiting by the investigations, all of them more
or less recent, of Passavant and G. W. Reid, of Thausing, Dürer’s
biographer, and Mr Koehler, the Keeper of the Prints at Boston,
Massachusetts--has catalogued one hundred and three. The number--not
so considerable as Schöngauer’s, by about a couple of score--does
not, as first thought, seem enormous for one the greater portion of
whose life was given to original engraving; but then, it must be
remembered, Dürer’s life, though not exactly a short, was scarcely a
long one. And, again, whatever may have been the processes he employed,
and even if, as Mr Middleton-Wake supposes, etched work, as well as
burin-work, helped him greatly along his way, the elaboration of his
labour was never lessened; the order of completeness he strove for and
attained had nothing in common with the completeness of the sketch.
His German pertinacity and dogged joy in work for mere work’s sake,
never permitted him to dismiss an endeavour until he had carried it
to actual realisation. Each piece of his is not so much a page as a
volume. The creations of his art have the lastingness and the finality
of a consummate Literature, and of those three material things with
which such literature has been compared--
“_marbre, onyx, émail,_”--
as the phrase goes, of one who wrought on phrases as Cellini on the
golden vase, and Dürer on the little sheet of burnished copper.
Of the hundred and three prints which, in the Fitz-William Museum, Mr
Middleton-Wake placed in what he believes to be their chronological
order--many, of course, their author himself dated, but many afford
room for the exercise of critical ingenuity and care--sixteen belong to
the series known as “The Passion upon Copper,” which is distinguished
by that title from the series of seven-and-thirty woodcuts known
generally as “The Little Passion.” The “Passion upon Copper,” executed
between the year 1507 and the year 1513, are pronounced “unequal in
their execution,” “not comparing favourably with Dürer’s finer prints,”
and “engraved for purposes of sale.” Now most of Dürer’s work was
“engraved for purposes of sale”--that is, it was meant to be sold--but
what the critic may be supposed to mean, in this case, is, that the
designs were due to no inspiration; the execution, to no keen desire.
Four much later pieces--including two _St Christophers_--are spoken
of with similar disparagement. I am unable to perceive the justice
of the reproach when it is applied to the _Virgin with the Child in
Swaddling Clothes_--a print of which it is remarked that it, like
certain others, is “without any particular charm or dignity; being
taken quite casually from burgher-life, and only remarkable for the
soft tone of the engraving.” No doubt the _Virgin with the Child
in Swaddling Clothes_ is inspired by the human life--and that was
“burgher-life” necessarily--which Dürer beheld; and it is none the
worse for that. It is not one of the very finest of the Virgins, but
it is simple, natural, healthy, and it is characteristic, as I seem
to see, not only in its _technique_, but in its conception. What more
fascinating than the little bit of background, lavished there, so small
and yet so telling?--a little stretch of shore, with a town placed
on it, and great calm water: a reminiscence, it may be, of Italy--a
_décor_ from Venice--a bit of distance too recalling the distance in
the _Melancholia_ itself. But we must pass on, to consider briefly
two or three points in Dürer’s work: points which we shall the better
illustrate by reference to the greater masterpieces.
The year 1497 was reached before the master of Nuremberg affixed a
date to any one of his plates. That is the not quite satisfactory
composition, curiously ugly in the particular realism it affects--and
yet, in a measure, interesting--_A Group of Four Naked Women_. Thausing
doubts, or does more than doubt, the originality of the design. Mr
Middleton-Wake holds that in execution, at least, it shows distinct
advance upon Dürer’s earlier work, and amongst earlier work he
includes no less than three-and-twenty of the undated plates: putting
the _Ravisher_ first, with 1494 as its probable year, and putting last
before the _Group of Naked Women_, a piece which he maintains to be the
finest of the earlier prints, the _Virgin and Child with the Monkey_.
Looking along the whole line of Dürer prints, in what he deems to be
their proper sequence, Mr Middleton-Wake observes, as all observe
indeed, wonderful variations--differences in execution so marked that
at first one might hesitate to assign to the same master, pieces
wrought so differently. He argues fully how their dissimilarity is due
“either to a marked progression in their handling” or to an alteration
in their actual method. For quick perception of such partly voluntary
change, the student is referred to an examination of the _Coat of
Arms with a Skull_, the _Coat of Arms with the Cock_, the _Adam
and Eve_, the _St Jerome_, and the _Melancholia_. The year 1503 was
probably the date of the two Coats of Arms; the great print of the
_Adam and Eve_ carries its date of “1504”; the _St Jerome_ is of 1512;
the _Melancholia_ of 1514. The practical point established for the
collector by such differences as are here visible, and which a study of
these particular examples by no means exhausts, is that he must most
carefully avoid the not unnatural error of judging an impression of a
Dürer print by its attainment or its non-attainment of the standard
established by some other Dürer print he knows familiarly already.
The aims technically were so very different, he must know each print
to say with any certainty--save in a few most obvious cases--whether
a given impression, that seems good, is, or is not, desirable. The
“silver-grey tone,” for example, so charming in one print, may be
unattainable in, or unsuitable to, another.
Upon the question of the meaning of certain prints of Dürer, any amount
of ingenious, interesting conjecture has been expended in the Past. One
of Mr Stopford Brooke’s sermons--I heard it preached, now many years
ago, in York Street--is a delightful essay on the _Melancholia_. For
suggestions as to the allegorical meaning of _The Knight of Death_,
it may be enough to refer the reader to Thausing (vol. ii. page 225)
and to Mrs Heaton’s Life of Dürer (page 168). The _Jealousy_, Dürer
speaks of, in his Netherlands Diary, as a “Hercules.” _The Knight and
the Lady_, Thausing says, is one of those Dance of Death pictures so
common in the Middle Age. Of the _Great Fortune_, Thausing holds that
its enigmatical design, with the landscape below, has direct reference
to the Swiss War of 1499, and this we may agree with; but, explaining,
it may be, too far, he writes in detail, “The winged Goddess of Justice
and Retribution stands, smiling, on a globe; carrying in one hand a
bridle and a curb for the too presumptuous fortunate ones; in the
other, a goblet for unappreciated worth.” Mr Middleton-Wake, wisely
less philosophical, urges a simpler meaning. The city of Nuremberg,
he reminds us, had, in compliance with Maximilian’s demand, furnished
four hundred foot soldiers and sixty horse, for the campaign in
Switzerland, and at the head of these troops was Pirkheimer, to whom on
his return his fellow-citizens offered a golden cup. “We assume,” says
Mr Middleton-Wake, “that it is this cup which Dürer places in the hand
of the Goddess.” With the Swiss War are also associated the _Coat of
Arms with the Cock_ and the even rarer (certainly not finer) _Coat of
Arms with a Skull_. The one may symbolise the anticipated success, the
other the failure, of the campaign into Switzerland.
[Illustration:
DÜRER: _Coat of Arms with the Cock_.
]
A reference to the Richard Fisher Sale Catalogue (at Sotheby’s,
May 1892) affords as ready and as correct a means as we are likely
to obtain of estimating the present value of fine Dürer prints. Mr
Fisher’s collection was unequal; but it was celebrated, and it was,
on the whole, admirable. It was, moreover, practically complete, and
in this way alone it represented an extraordinary achievement in
Collecting. Its greatest feature was Mr Fisher’s possession of the
_Adam and Eve_ in a condition of exceptional brilliancy, and with a
long pedigree, from the John Barnard, Maberly, and Hawkins collections.
This was the first Albert Dürer that passed under the hammer on the
occasion, and so opened the sale of the Dürers with a thunderclap,
as it were--Herr Meder paying £410 to bear it off in triumph. Then
came the _Nativity_, the charming dainty little print, which Dürer
himself speaks of as the “Christmas Day.” Mr Gutekunst gave £49 for
it. A fine impression of the _Virgin with Long Hair_ fetched £51; an
indifferent one of the more beautiful _Virgin seated by a Wall_,
£10, 15s. The _St Hubert_ sold for £48--a finer impression of the same
subject selling, in the Holford Sale, just a year later, for £150--the
_Melancholia_, £39; but, it must be remembered, the _Melancholia_,
though always one of the most sought for, is not by any means one of
the rarest Dürers. The _Knight of Death_ passed, for £100, into the
hands of Mr Gutekunst. An early impression of the _Coat of Arms with
the Cock_ was bought by Mr Kennedy for £20; the _Coat of Arms with a
Skull_ going to Messrs Colnaghi for £42. In the Holford Sale a yet
finer impression of this last subject was bought by Herr Meder for £75.
Before I leave, for a while at least, the prosaic questions of the
Sale-Room, and pass on to direct attention to the artistic virtues of
the “Little Masters,” let the “beginning collector,” as the quaint
phrase runs, be warned in regard to copies. It has not been left for
an age that imitates everything--that copies our charming Battersea
Enamel, _tant bien que mal_, and the “scale-blue” of old Worcester,
and the lustre of Oriental--it has not been left for such an age to
be the first to copy Dürer. In fact, no one nowadays bestows the
labour required in copying Dürer. He is copied nowadays only in the
craft of _photogravure_. But, of old time, Wierix, and less celebrated
men, copied him greatly. This is a matter of which the collector--at
first at least--has need to beware. It must be stamped upon his mind
that Dürer’s work at a certain period did much engage the copyist. It
engaged the copyist only less perhaps than did the work of Rembrandt
himself, through successive generations.
And now we speak, though briefly, of the seven German “Little Masters,”
of whom the best are never “little” in style, but, rather, great and
pregnant, richly charged with quality and meaning: “little” only in the
mere scale of their labour. The print-buyer who is in that rudimentary
condition that he only considers the walls of his sitting-rooms, and
buys almost exclusively for their effective decoration, does not look
at the Little Masters. Upon a distant wall, their works make little
spots. But in a corner, near the fire--on the right-hand side of that
arm-chair in which you seek to establish your most cossetted guest, the
person (of the opposite sex, generally) whom you are glad to behold--a
little frame containing half-a-dozen Behams, Aldegrevers, to be looked
at closely (pieces of Ornament perhaps; exercises in exquisite line),
adds charm to an interior which, under circumstances of Romance,
may need indeed no added charm at all from the mere possessions of
the collector. Still--there are moods. And if the German Little
Masters come in pleasantly enough, on an odd foot or so of wall, now
and then, how justified is their presence in the portfolio--in the
solander-box--when the collector is really a serious one, and when he
no longer bestows upon living, breathing Humanity all the solicitude
that was meant for his Behams!
To talk more gravely, the German Little Masters should indeed be
collected far more widely than they are, amongst us. Scarcely anything
in their appeal is particular and local. Their qualities--the qualities
of the best of them--are exquisite and sterling, and are for all Time.
The seven Little Masters, on whom the late Mr W. Bell Scott--one of the
first people here in England to collect them--wrote, in an inadequate
series, one of the few quite satisfactory books, are, Altdorfer,
Barthel Beham, Sebald Beham, Aldegrever, Pencz, Jacob Binck, and Hans
Brosamer. One or two of these may quickly be discerned to be inferior
to the others; one or two to be superior; but it would be priggish to
attempt to range them in definite order of merit. It may suffice to say
that to me at least Aldegrever and the Behams appeal most as men to be
collected. The Behams--Sebald especially--was a very fine Ornamentist.
Aldegrever, it may be, was an Ornamentist yet more faultless. Some
examples of his Ornament the collector should certainly possess. And
then he will come back very probably to the Behams, recognising in
these two brothers a larger range than Aldegrever had, and a spirit
more dramatic--an entrance more vivid and personal into human life,
a keen interest in human story. They were realists, not without a
touch of the ideal. And in design and execution, they were consummate
artists, and not only--which they were too, of course--infinitely
laborious and exquisite craftsmen.
Adam Bartsch has catalogued, in his industrious way, according to
the best lights of his period, the works of the Little Masters. His
volumes are the foundation of all subsequent study. To Altdorfer
he assigns ninety-six pieces (I speak of course here, and in every
case, of pieces engraved on metal); to Barthel Beham, sixty-four; to
Sebald Beham--whose life, though not a long, was yet a longer one than
Barthel’s--two hundred and fifty-nine; to Jacob Binck, ninety-seven;
to George Pencz, a hundred and twenty-six; to Heinrich Aldegrever, no
less than two hundred and eighty-nine; to Brosamer, four-and-twenty.
But of late years, as was to be expected, certain of these masters have
been the subjects of particular study. Thus we have, in England, the
dainty little catalogue of Sebald Beham, by the Rev. W. J. Loftie--a
book delightfully printed in a very limited edition. That book brings
up the number of Sebald Beham’s assured plates to two hundred and
seventy-four. Dr Rosenberg has also, in much detail, written in German
upon the plates of this fascinating artist; and still more lately
M. Edouard Aumüller has published, at Munich, in the French tongue,
elaborate, though indeed scarcely final, studies of the Behams and of
Jacob Binck.
Of the German Little Masters, Albrecht Altdorfer is the earliest. He
was only nine years Dürer’s junior; nearly twenty years separate him
from others of the group. Born it really even at the present moment
seems difficult to say where, Altdorfer, Dr Rosenberg considers, was
actually a pupil of Dürer’s--an apprentice, an inmate of his house,
probably, soon after Dürer as a quite young man, already prosperous
and busy, took up his abode, with his bride, Agnes Frey, at the
large house by the Thiergarten Gate. But whatever was the place of
Altdorfer’s birth and whatever the place of his pupilage--and neither
matter, as it seems, is settled conclusively--Ratisbon is the city
in which his life was chiefly spent. There he was architect as well
as painter and engraver; an official post was given him; and during
the last decade of his career his architectural work for Ratisbon
caused, it is to be presumed, the complete cessation of his work of
an engraver. Merits Altdorfer of course has--variety and ingenuity
amongst them--or his fame would hardly have survived; but Mr W.
B. Scott, whose criticism of him was that of an artist naturally
rather in sympathy with the methods of his endeavour, never rises to
enthusiasm in his account of him. His drawing is not found worthy of
any warm commendation, nor his craftsmanship with the copper. The
great lessons he might have learnt from Dürer, he does not seem fully
to have appropriated. His design is deemed more fantastic. But his
range was not narrow, and apart from his practice in what is strictly
line-engraving, he executed etchings of Landscape--caring more than
Dürer did, perhaps, for Landscape for its own sake: studying it indeed
less lovingly in detail, but with a certain then unusual reliance on
the interest of its general effect. Some measure of romantic character
belongs to his Landscape: “partly intensified,” says Mr Scott, “and
partly destroyed, by the eccentric taste that appears in nearly
everything from his hand.” The pine had fascination for him. “And he
loaded its boughs with fronds, like the feathers of birds, and added
long hues, vagaries of lines, that have little or no foundation in
Nature.”
Of both the Behams, Mr Loftie assures us that they were pupils of
Dürer. Greater even than the artist I have just been writing about,
they show, it seems to me, at once an influence more direct from
Dürer, and an individuality more potent, of their own. Barthel, the
younger of the two brothers--one whose designs Sebald, with all his
gifts, was not too proud to now and then copy--was born at Nuremberg in
1502. “Le dessin de ses estampes,” writes M. Aumüller, “est savant et
gracieux, et son burin est d’une élégance brillante et moelleuse.” The
words--though it is impossible, in a line or two, to generalise a great
personality--are not badly chosen. Exiled from Nuremberg, whilst still
young, Barthel Beham laboured at Frankfort, and, later, in Italy--a
circumstance which accounts for something in the character of his
work. For, in Barthel, the Italian influence is unmistakable; he is,
as Mr Scott says truly, “emancipated from the wilful despising of the
graces.” In Italy, in 1540, Barthel died.
Sebald Beham, the more prolific brother, whose years, ere they were
ended, numbered half a century, was born in 1500. He remained at
home--not indeed at Nuremberg, but long at Frankfort--yet, remaining
at home, his work was somehow more varied. A classical subject one
day, and peasant life the next, an ornament now, and now a design
symbolical like his _Melancholia_--these interested him in turn;
and, as for his technical achievement, his _Coat of Arms with the
Cock_ (for he, like Dürer, had that, as well as a _Melancholia_)
would suffice to show, had he nothing else to show, his unsurpassable
fineness of detail. “Cette superbe gravure,” M. Aumüller says--and most
justifiably, for technical excellence cannot go any further, nor is
there wanting majesty of Style. At the Loftie Sale some happy person
acquired for £4 this lovely little masterpiece: at the Durazzo Sale,
£5 was the price of it. Analysis of Sebald Beham’s prints shows that
of his noble work on metal seventy-five subjects are suggested by
sacred and nineteen by “profane” history. Mythology claims thirty-eight
designs, and Allegory thirty-four. Genre subjects, treated with the
various qualities of observation, humour, warmth, absorb some seventy
plates. Of vignettes and ornaments, there are about two score.
In 1881--several years after he had finished his Catalogue--the Rev. W.
J. Loftie sold in Germany his remarkable collection of Sebald Beham’s
works. Next perhaps, in importance, in recent times, to Mr Loftie’s
collection, was that of Richard Fisher--dispersed at a sale I have
already spoken off. From the Fisher Sale, which was so comprehensive in
its character, we will take note of the prices here in England of at
least a few fine things--premising that whatever be the prices fetched
by an exceptional rarity, a very few pounds (often only three or four),
spent carefully, will buy, at a good dealer’s, a fine Beham. In the
Fisher Sale then, the _Madonna and Child with the Parrot_ fetched £5,
10s.; the _Madonna with the Sleeping Child_, £17, 10s. (Meder); the
_Venus and Cupid_, £3, 10s. (Deprez); the magnificently drawn _Leda_,
only eleven shillings--but then it must have been a bad impression, for
a fine one at the Loftie Sale fetched £4, 10s., and at the Kalle Sale,
£6--_Death Surprising a Woman in her Sleep_, £3, 12s. (Meder); the
_Buffoon, and the Two Couples_, £5; the _Two Buffoons_, First State,
£7, 12s. (Deprez); the _Ornament with a Cuirass and the two Cupids_,
£3, 10s. At the same sale, Aldegrever’s _Virgin Sitting_ had gone for
£7, 10s., and Barthel Beham’s _Lucretia_ for £4, his _Fight for the
Standard_ for £4, his _Vignette with Four Cupids_ for £4, 4s. But it
ought perhaps to be remembered that in several cases the representation
of the Little Masters in Mr Fisher’s Sale was not good enough to
bring the prices which, under favourable circumstances, are wont to
be realised by the finest impressions. In regard to Barthel Beham, I
will add that the highest price accustomed to be fetched by any print
of his, is fetched by his rare, strong portrait of Charles the Fifth.
Having said what I have of it, I cannot say that it is undesirable,
but it is quite undesirable if it stands alone--for it is exceptional
rather than characteristic: in mere size, for one thing. A First State
of it has fetched as much as sixty pounds: a Second State averages
about twelve.
[Illustration:
SEBALD BEHAM: _Adam and Eve_.
]
To Aldegrever--perhaps the very greatest of the Ornamentists--the
most general of recent students of the School, Dr Rosenberg, does the
least justice. Mr Scott, upon the other hand, asserts his position
with strength; nor will it be unprofitable for amateur or collector
if I quote, at some length, what he says. The Behams, who were great,
and Altdorfer, who was scarcely great, we have--for our present
purposes--done with already. But about the others Mr Scott may well
be heard. “George Pencz,” he reminds us, “left the Fatherland and
subjected himself to Italian influence, both in manipulation and
in invention, while Brosamer and Jacob Binck are of comparatively
little consequence.” I hope--may I say in a parenthesis?--that Mr
Scott attached great weight to his “comparatively,” for otherwise
he did the charming work of Jacob Binck a rude injustice. But to
proceed--“Aldegrever is the most worthy successor to Dürer, and is
the greatest master of invention, with the truest German traditions
of sentiment and romance, as well as the most prolific ornamentist.
He remains all his life skilfully advancing in the command of his
graver, to which he remains true. Like Lucas of Leyden, he lives a
secluded life, and his miniature prints continue to issue from his
hands with more and more richness and independence of poetic thought,
until we lose sight of him, dying where he had lived, in the small
town of Soest, without any writer to record the particulars of his
modest life.” It may be added that Rosenberg considers not only that
Aldegrever was never under Dürer’s direct tuition--though carrying out
the Dürer traditions--but also that he was never in Nuremberg at all.
And, by this means isolating Aldegrever from the coterie that grew
up in the Franconian town, Rosenberg derives him rather from Lucas
van Leyden. To which Mr Scott answers, that if Aldegrever never left
his native Westphalia, never even visited Nuremberg and Augsburg, “he
apprehended the movement wonderfully from a distance, and appropriated
as much as he chose--happily for his works--as much as properly
amalgamated with his Northern nature.”
A great name has passed our lips in discussing this thing briefly. I
wish that there were space here--that it had been a part of my scheme
to treat, not so utterly inadequately, Lucas van Leyden. But in a book
of this sort--which must seize, so to say, upon finger-posts, where it
can--half of the business is renunciation, and I renounce, unwillingly,
the fair discussion of the great early Flemish master. Dürer himself
approved of him: gladly exchanged original prints with Master Lucas of
Leyden, who showed him courtesy on a journey. Numerically the work of
Lucas is not inferior--rather the other way--to Albert Dürer’s. His
range of subject was hardly less extensive, though his range of mind
was less vast. In a dramatic theme, Lucas of Leyden could hold his own
with any one. He had less of unction and of sentiment--less depth, in
fine, very likely. But the great prints of the Renaissance in the North
are not properly represented in a collector’s portfolios, if the work
of this master of various and prolific industry is altogether omitted.
His draughtsmanship, though it improved with Time, was never the
searching draughtsmanship of Dürer, indeed, or of one or two of Dürer’s
followers. Yet it was expressive and spirited. And spirit, vivacity,
a certain grace even, are well discovered in the rare work of Lucas
in a particular field in which the Behams and Aldegrever triumphed
habitually and in which Albert was occasionally great--I mean the
field of Ornament. The rare _Panneau d’Ornements_ (Bartsch, 164--dated
1528), in scheme of light and shade, in scheme of action, in ingenious,
never-wearying symmetry of line, in telling execution, reaches a place
near the summit. The collector, when the chance offers, does well to
give the six or seven, eight or ten guineas perhaps, which, in some
fortunate hour, may be its ransom.
[Illustration:
LUCAS VAN LEYDEN: _Panel of Ornament_.
]