Fine prints

by Sir Frederick Wedmore

CERTAIN WOODCUTS

Though when this volume was first planned, it was supposed that in its regular course it might embrace a chapter upon Woodcuts, mature consideration and the progress of the work revealed to me the undesirableness of treating either by my own or by a more qualified hand the theme of Woodcuts, at any important length; and in adding here a Note on certain examples of that ancient art, it is convenient that I should say plainly why the matter is left to an Appendix.

First, then, treatment exhaustive, or adequate, could only have been supplied by some one other than myself: my own knowledge of woodcuts being merely that of an outsider who cannot withhold a measure of interest from any departments of Art. To have invited the continued presence of an expert—an enthusiast in the particular thing—would have been at least to deprive the book of that unity of sentiment which comes of undivided authorship, and which even in a work of this sort may conceivably be a benefit: moreover, although a complete Guide to Old Prints must include of necessity many words about Woodcuts, it was doubtful whether the subject of “Fine Prints” involved even a mention of them. I mean, it might be argued, plausibly, that Woodcuts, however fine in their design—and the design of the giant Dürer was given to some of them—are in the very nature of things scarcely “fine” in execution. To say that the best recall the utterance of noble sentiment by rough and uncouth tongue, is not for a moment to minimise their sterling worth. Lastly, too, the collectors of them—in England at least—are scanty in the extreme. When—one may ask—do they appear at Sotheby’s? As objects of research, they seem hopelessly out of fashion. It may be that they had their day when only the Past was thought interesting. But it has been one of the objects of this book to acknowledge specially the interest of more modern achievement, and not to call contemporary genius only “talent,” until it is contemporary no longer, and, being dead—and dead long since—may be accorded its due.

But I should like to tell the beginner in the study of Prints one or two quite elementary things—as, for instance, that the best and the most numerous of old Woodcuts are German; that not a few of the earlier masters of Copperplate Engraving carried out upon the wood-block certain of their designs; that in the days of Bewick the art had a certain revival, finding itself well adapted—in book illustration at all events—to the rendering of Bewick’s homely and rustic themes. And so one might go on—but after all, Book Illustration is no part of one’s theme. Let it just be mentioned about Bewick—before we leave the English woodcuts for the earlier masters—that the rarest and in some respects the most important of his works (not, I think, the most fascinating) is the piece known as the Chillingham Bull. When only a few impressions had been taken from it, the original block split. Hence the print’s scarcity; and in its scarcity we see in part at least the cause of its attractiveness.

A passage in the last annual report made by Mr Sidney Colvin to the Trustees of the British Museum—in his capacity as Keeper of the Prints—reminds me of a splendid gift made lately to the nation by the munificence of Mr William Mitchell: a gift which the possession of money alone, and of a generous intention, could not have empowered him to make; only deep knowledge, and real diligence in the art of collecting, made the thing possible. Through Mr Mitchell’s gift there passes into the store-house of the Department of Prints this connoisseur’s collection of German and other Woodcuts, including a series of those by Albert Dürer, which is almost complete, and “quite unrivalled,” Mr Colvin says, “in quality and condition.” The whole array includes 1290 early woodcuts, chiefly, as will be seen, German, and constituted for the most part as follows:—104 by anonymous German artists of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; 151 single cuts by Albert Dürer, together with the Little Passion (set of proofs), the Life of the Virgin (first state, without text), and the Great Passion, the Life of the Virgin, and the Apocalypse (all with Latin text, edition of 1511); 63 by Hans Schaufelein, including two sets of proofs of two series of the Passion; 18 by Hans Springinklee, including 14 proofs of illustrations to “Hortulus Animæ”; 7 by Wolfgang Huber; 36 by Hans Baldung; 7 by Johann Wechtlin; 19 by Hans Sebald Beham; 43 by Lucas Cranach, including a unique impression of the St George, printed in gold on a blue ground; 60 by Albert Altdorfer; 40 by Hans Burgkmair; 313 by or attributed to Hans Holbein; 9 by Urs Graf; 12 by Heinrich Holzmüller; 14 by J. von Calcar; 5 by Jost Amman; 11 by Anton von Worms; 16 by Lucas van Leyden; 6 attributed to Geoffroy Tory; one attributed to Marie de Medicis; the large view of Venice by Jacopo de’ Barbarj, first state; 9 by Niccolò Boldrini; 5 by I.B. with the bird.

An inspection of this collection alone, in the Museum Print Room, constitutes, at first hand, an introduction to the study of an ancient, quaint, and pregnant art.

So much had I written when there came to me a note from Mr O. Gutekunst, curiously confirming, on the whole, the view that I had taken as to the small place filled by Woodcuts, generally, in the scheme of the modern collector. It is not, however, so much on this account that I print the note here, as because it contains one or two particulars—especially as to money value—not named by me, and which may be of interest. “The history of Woodcuts,” says Mr O. Gutekunst—instructing my ignorance—“begins, as you know, practically with printed books in which the woodcuts took the place of the miniatures, etc., in Manuscripts. During almost the whole of the Fifteenth Century the Woodcut was thus confined to illustration, and belongs far more to the bibliophile than to the Print-collector. Vide ‘Biblia Pauperum’ and similar works—in Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands—Block Books, Incunabula, etc., etc. The great period of Wood Engraving as a distinct art by itself—a then and now appreciated mode of expression of the artist—is the first half of the Sixteenth Century.” Mr Gutekunst then cites to me works by masters, some of whom have been named. “There were Dürer, Cranach, Holbein, Altdorfer, Brosamer,” he says. “Fine specimens of these men’s work, particularly portraits, and when printed in one, two, or more colours, are now, and always must have been, exceedingly rare, with prices varying from, say £20 to £80 for single very fine specimens. The decadence begins with Jost Amman, for instance, in Germany, and Andreani, say, in Italy, where the works of earlier, and more particularly the masters of the wrong half of the Sixteenth Century, were reproduced in chiar-oscuro.” With the exception perhaps of the remarkable impressions in Mr Mitchell’s collection, Mr O. Gutekunst asserts that the finest specimens always were most appreciated in Germany, and adds, “There has ever been more interest taken in Woodcuts by German collectors than by any others.”