THE PRINT ROOM OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM
The most interesting among recent additions to the Print Room are woodcuts, both old and new. A chiaroscuro by Andreani, after Alessandro Casolani of Siena, representing the Pietà, or Lamentation for Christ, is remarkable both for its great size—it measures nearly six feet by four—and for its rarity. Other impressions exist at Bassano and Berlin. The figures, St. John supporting the dead Saviour, and a second group of three holy women in attendance on the Virgin, are nearly of the size of life, and the wood-engraver evidently set himself the task of producing the closest possible facsimile of a large cartoon, outlined in charcoal and washed with neutral tints. He has succeeded very well, and he was fortunate, considering the date, 1592, in obtaining so fine a composition on which to exert his skill. The design has been cut throughout on three sets of blocks, one for the black outline and two for tone. The impression, on many sheets of paper joined together, is in good preservation, but the lowest portion has perhaps been cut away, for there is no trace of the inscription, recorded by Kolloff in his catalogue of Andreani’s works (No. 15), that contains the dedication of the print to Vincenzo Gonzaga, duke of Mantua, with the names of the artists and the date and place of publication. Andreani had worked hitherto at Rome, Florence, and Siena. It was to this dedication, apparently, and to his success in such an important print, that he owed a summons to Mantua, his native city, and a commission from the duke to reproduce in chiaroscuro Mantegna’s Triumph of Caesar. ¶ Another woodcut of smaller but still considerable dimensions (39¾ by 28¼ inches) bears the address ‘Gedruckt zu Nürmberg Bey hans Wolff Glaser,’ cut upon the block in a tablet at the left lower corner. Glaser was a ‘Briefmaler’ or petty publisher, printer, and wood-engraver, who was at work at Nuremberg in the middle, or third quarter, of the sixteenth century. His name is most familiar as the publisher of one of the late editions of the portrait of Dürer at the end of his life. The present work represents the Trinity, with angels in adoration. These angels are copied, for the most part, from Dürer’ fine woodcut of 1511 (B. 122), but they have been sadly spoilt in the process of enlargement. Glaser’s work is coarse throughout, and remarkable only for the rarity which it shares with most early woodcuts of exceptional size. ¶ A fine impression of the portrait of Luther as an Augustinian friar, after Cranach, dated 1520 (P. 194), has been well coloured by a contemporary hand. A tablet at the bottom contains the undescribed Latin inscription, EFFIGIES DOCTORIS MARTINI LVTHERI | AVGVSTINIANI WITTENBERGĒSIS | 1520. The Holy Dove is added at the top on a separate block, which also completes the arch. The portrait, rare in the early, original impressions, hardly deserves to rank with the woodcuts drawn by Cranach himself on the block; it seems, rather, to be a good adaptation of an engraving on copper of the same year (P. 8, Sch. 7), in which Luther stands in front of a niche. Dr. Flechsig finds much fault with the engraving itself, and will not allow it to be more than a copy of the other engraved portrait of Luther (B. 5, Sch. 6), with a plain background. With this woodcut were purchased three interesting and undescribed etchings of knights arrayed for the tournament, by the monogrammist C. S., a German artist of about 1550. ¶ A dainty little book, without text, but with the address, A LION | PAR IAN DE TOVRNES. | M.D. LVI, within a graceful arabesque border, on the first page, contains proofs of sixty blocks by wood-engravers of the Lyons school, printed throughout on the recto of the leaf. ‘Das gebet Salomonis’ (S. Grimm, Augsburg, 1523; 8vo.) has a pretty border to the title, and a woodcut, Moses receiving the Tables of the Law, both by the fascinating illustrator known provisionally as ‘The Master of the Trostspiegel.’ A more important illustrated book is ‘Die Legend des heyligen vatters Francisci,’ printed by Hölzel at Nuremberg in 1512, and profusely illustrated with woodcuts by Wolf Traut. The fine copy recently purchased for the Print Room was formerly in the library of William Morris. ¶ Another volume, still more intimately associated with the author of ‘The Earthly Paradise,’ is the gift of Mr. George Young Wardle, a friend and associate of Morris. It contains a complete set, one of a very small number in existence, of proofs rubbed by hand from unpublished blocks, designed by Burne-Jones, to illustrate the tale of ‘Cupid and Psyche.’ The illustrations, forty-four in number, were drawn upon the block by Mr. Wardle himself from the rough sketches of Burne-Jones, which are now at Oxford. Morris, in revolt against the methods of professional wood-engravers, had a few blocks cut by amateurs, chosen among his own friends, and then took up the task himself and cut by far the larger number with his own hands. To these illustrations are added some initials and decorative borders, both designed and cut by Morris. The story of the projected edition has been told in ‘A Note on the Kelmscott Press.’ The scheme was abandoned about 1870. The woodcuts, accordingly, belong to the period of English illustrations generally described as ‘the sixties,’ and are separated by a long interval from the later Burne-Jones woodcuts, including the Chaucer series, which were printed in the ‘nineties,’ at the Kelmscott Press. They are as full of romance as anything that Burne-Jones ever drew, and the cutting, inexperienced and occasionally faulty as it is, often preserves the freshness of the original sketch as no mere hack engraver’s work would have done. It must not be forgotten, however, that the defects of the cutting, in the opinion of Morris and Burne-Jones themselves, were so serious as to make the publication of the blocks undesirable. In addition to such rubbed proofs as those lately in Mr. Wardle’s possession, a small number of proofs exist which were pulled at a later date in the printing-press, and do more justice to the blocks.
C. D.