After commencing Meister he continued to work for a while in the Gothic manner of his father and those about him. He received at this time two commissions worth sixty florins apiece, which he executed after the designs of others. The tomb of Bishop Heinrich III., Gross von Trockau, in Bamberg Cathedral (1492) is one of these. It is skilfully wrought in low relief. The bishop, in his episcopal garments, is conceived as standing on a lion, and a Gothic canopy is set over his head. In style it recalls the second commission referred to—the monument in the same cathedral of Bishop Georg II., Marshal von Ebenet, which was wrought by Vischer from a design by Wolf. Katzheimer.
STEIN PHOTO.] [CATHEDRAL, MAGDEBURG
3. TOMB OF ARCHBISHOP ERNST
By the year 1494 the Meister had already laid the foundations of the great reputation which was to be his. For, in company with Simon Lamberger, the wood-carver, he was summoned to Heidelberg by Philip, Elector of the Palatinate, who desired them to “serve him with their counsel and their handiwork.” At the special request of the Nuremberg Council, so we are told,[[2]] they went; and they stayed there for a considerable space of time to work for the Elector. But of the work they performed at Heidelberg we know absolutely nothing. Peter Vischer was certainly back again in Nuremberg in 1496. For in that year he gave a full release (“aller Dinge quitt, ledig und los”) to his friend Peter Harsdorffer the younger, in whose hands he had left the management of all his affairs during his absence. He returned, perhaps, to execute the important commissions he had received from the North. In the following year he completed the first great work of his life, in which his own individuality is for the first time apparent. For the tomb of Archbishop Ernst in the Cathedral at Magdeburg, is the first of Peter Vischer’s masterpieces, and it affords the most important illustration of the early influences under which he worked. The statue of the Archbishop, who was a brother of John the Stable and Frederick the Wise, lies in high relief beneath a Gothic Canopy, which strongly recalls the famous Pyx then just completed by the artist’s friend, Adam Krafft. The figure, which is represented in cope and mitre, rests on a stone Gothic base, as upon a bed of state, and holds in its hands a crosier and a Pontifical Cross. A pleasing Latin inscription round the monument informs us that “with whatever art the hands of the craftsman have wrought me, yet am I but dust, and contain the dust and all the earthly remains” of the great Archbishop, and it concludes with the prayer that his soul may rest in the consolation of light and peace. (Ills. [3] and [4].)
[2]. Baader.
Ipse me vivus posuit, it is added. And indeed this Child of Light was wise in his generation, and knowing that artists are rare, and that through their pen or brush alone can most men achieve an earthly immortality, the archbishop had ordered his tomb from Peter Vischer in 1494, though he himself did not die till 1513. He was not so foolish as to leave the matter to the care of ungrateful heirs like Browning’s Bishop who ordered his tomb in St. Praxed’s Church. The date on the tombstone, which is the date of the setting up thereof, is variously interpreted 1495 and 1497. But all Peter Vischer’s 5’s are quite unlike the final figure in this inscription, although many perceive in it a 5 after the manner of the Arabic lettering of those days. Moreover Vischer was in Heidelberg in 1494, and only returned to Nuremberg to stay in 1496. Only at Nuremberg can he have had the appliances necessary for so elaborate a work, and, even if he paid a flying visit there before ’96, he had not sufficient time to complete his task by 1495. There is yet another reason for putting the date of the Magdeburg monument as late as possible, and that is its amazing superiority to the Breslau tomb of Bishop John IV., the setting up of which Peter Vischer himself personally superintended in 1496. The latter monument is so inferior in style and treatment that it is incredible that the artist, after having made such an advance as is exhibited in the Magdeburg memorial, should have gone back in the following year to so hard, forced and yet feeble a handling of form. If this Breslau tomb is indeed later than the other it must be the work of an apprentice, who has endeavoured to imitate the idea of the Magdeburg masterpiece, and very lamentably failed in his endeavour. The decorative work, however, is very much more successful than the treatment of the figures, of which the drapery still completely hides the anatomy and still falls in stiff and angular folds.
STEIN PHOTO.] [CATHEDRAL, MAGDEBURG
4. TOMB OF ARCHBISHOP ERNST
But to return to the tomb of Archbishop Ernst. The artist has adopted that late Gothic style which was apt to lead to so much that was weak, trivial and ineffective. But there is here nothing that is excessive or disproportionate. Even in the case of the canopy above the head of the reclining Bishop, if we concede the permissibility of its presence at all, we must also confess that there is an artistic reason for its existence in the fact that it furnishes the top which one feels to be required for the monument. As to the recumbent form itself, it is, in the strength of its treatment and the individuality of its portraiture, conceived after the realistic manner of the day. But Vischer has not been betrayed into any excess in this direction. Only it is evident that the influence of that striving after the impressions of life as the artist sees it, which has been called Realism, and which yet leaves room for so much that is ideal, has been working strongly within him. The broad, heavy folds of drapery falling straight or almost straight down the bodies of the Bishop and the Apostles speak also to the same conclusion. For statuettes of the Twelve Apostles, ranged on either side of the tomb, stand on pedestals, enriched with deep foliage, and beneath beautiful canopies, intricately wrought in the Gothic style. They are the forerunners of those superb figures on the Sebaldusgrab, but their pose is very monotonous, and in their undersize they recall the works of Adam Krafft, which reflect the short and dumpy type of the contemporary Nuremberger. A tendency to exaggerate the size of the head may be noticed. Possibly it is the result of the artist’s endeavour to express the individuality of the Apostles he represented. But this defect is reproduced in the Angel set at the head of the Archbishop.
A noticeable figure on this tomb is the St. Maurice at the head of it corresponding to the St. Stephen at the foot. This is a veritable Nuremberg type, and reminds us of the statuette of the same Saint now preserved in the Court of Krafft’s House (No. 7 Theresienstrasse) at Nuremberg. It is a fountain-figure, and was originally gilded. Doubt has been cast on the authorship of this piece, but cannot be seriously entertained after a comparison with the St. Maurice at Magdeburg. (Ill. [5].)