Martin Schongauer

Engraving probably c1475-88.
Size of original 67 x 79 mm, 2 5/8 x 3 1/8 inches

Two wonderfully characterised goldsmith apprentices are fighting, one wielding a pair of heavy metal tongs. Close by, a pot of molten precious metal in a flaming brazier is supported by a precarious-looking tripod stand. Is disaster near, or will the storm blow over?

In the fifteenth century, when boys often began apprenticeships as young as eleven, such scenes may have been all too common. Schongauer seems not to have trained formally as a goldsmith himself, but his father and two of his brothers were goldsmiths. He himself was unusual among early engravers in that, after a year studying at Leipzig University in 1465, he trained as a painter, though it is not known who with. Most engravers of the period had a background in goldsmithing, as the technique and tools of cutting into metal with a burin were shared by the two arts.

Schongauer most likely had some experience of using the burin from an early age, as it is his superb control of the engraved line, combined with his painter's skill in drawing and composition, that lift him clear above his contemporary Northern engravers. He was the first to successfully translate the values of the Netherlandish painters such as Van Eyck and Van der Weyden into the medium of engraving.

Genre scenes depicted in a comic light were popular subjects in the earliest Northern prints, and the tradition continued through the sixteenth century. Few equivalent paintings survive from earlier than the seventeenth century, when a great outpouring of Dutch and Flemish paintings adopted these themes.

Schongauer signed all his prints with his monogram, but never dated them. The style of this print and the form of the monogram (with sloping vertical stokes in the M) suggest a date after about 1475. His later prints tended to be smaller, with plainer backgrounds and strong, simple compositions. The face of the boy on the left is very similar to that of his St Sebastian, which is also considered late. Fewer than ten impressions of this print survive, of which the original we reproduce is one of the finest.

Size of reproduction:
67 x 79 mm, 2 5/8 x 3 1/8 inches

Print price:
£16    €24    $25

£ and € print prices include UK VAT at 17.5%. No UK VAT on Books.

© The Trustees of the British Museum 2006 Bartsch 91