Peter Vischer

by Cecil Headlam

STEIN PHOTO.] [KRAFFT HOUSE, NÜRNBERG
5. ST. MAURICE

The tomb throughout is wrought richly and with the minutest care. On the base Peter Vischer seizes the opportunity of indulging his humour and luxuriant imagination. He has added fantastic dogs and beasts of various kinds, in the same spirit, perhaps, as that in which Dürer used to adorn and complete his engravings and even to crowd the vacant spaces of his compositions with the Traumwerk with which his mind and memory were stored. And in this respect also the Magdeburg tomb foreshadows the Sebaldusgrab.

At the four corners are four lions bearing arms; above are four others poised in the manner of gargoyles on some Gothic building; whilst on the top, at each corner, standing on groups of Gothic pilasters are, or rather were, the symbols of the four Evangelists; for the eagle has been broken off and has disappeared now from its base.

During the next few years (1497-1508) many works were turned out of the Vischer Foundry; several of which were based on the designs of other artists, most probably at the request of the patron. Some of those which we can identify as coming from Vischer’s workshop in this fashion, such as the monument of Bishop Georg II. of Bamberg, which was executed after the design by Wolfgang Katzheimer, the Bamberg painter, or the monuments of Bishop Veit and Heinrich III. are of absolutely no interest to the student of Peter Vischer’s art.

STEIN PHOTO.] [CHURCH, RÖMHILD
6. MONUMENT OF COUNT HERMANN VIII

But two monuments, this time of temporal princes, which belong to the same period, have a greater interest and a higher merit. They are the memorials of Count Eitel Friedrich II. von Hohenzollern in the parish church of Hechingen (1500), and of Count Hermann VIII., at Römhild. (Ill. [6].) No one who has familiarized himself with the master’s manner will fail to perceive that, if these monuments have been executed by him in bronze, they have no less certainly been based upon the design of another hand. And no one who has studied the drawings of Albert Dürer, and who now compares these knightly figures, for instance, with some of those mail-clad forms of his, whether it be Lucas Baumgärtner or another, will be astonished to learn that Bergau has discovered and published that design, and that it proves to be indeed by Dürer. For that pen-and-ink drawing now at Florence, that sketch of the tall, thin knight, who is standing on a lion in a position that is, it must be confessed, both straddling and constrained, and who is apparently speaking to his wife, whose feet are set, according to the convention, upon a dog, the symbol of fidelity, is undeniably the first sketch for the tomb of Count Eitel and his wife Magdalena, Countess of Brandenburg, which is now to be found in the parish church of Hechingen. Certain very obvious variations have, however, been introduced, whether by the designer in a second sketch, or, as is most probable, by the bronze-worker on his own initiative. The figures, which in the original are excessively separate, have been brought closer together, and thereby, whilst the lion and dog on which they stand have suffered, an opportunity for the development of the background has been provided. A trace of this process is observable also in the position of the Count’s right elbow, which protrudes to the extreme outside edge of the frame. The left hand, holding a rosary, is another innovation, but it is not one for which in its execution any gain in grace can be claimed. Other minor alterations, also, may be remarked, as in the drapery and in the pose of the Countess, which is beautiful and Vischer-like. The substitution of the three coats-of-arms for the late Gothic work in Dürer’s sketch is noteworthy.

Unfortunately, as Lübke points out, this monument has not come down to us complete. Originally it was a Freigrab resting on lions, and the sides of it were richly decorated. Angels are said to have stood at the four corners, some of them supporting candlesticks and others coats-of-arms. But in this instance, as in a later and still more regrettable one, the craftsman was destined to suffer from the greed inspired by the value of the material in which he wrought. For, in 1782, portions of this tomb were melted down, and twenty-two new candlesticks for the church were cast out of the nearly one thousand pounds of metal resulting. The date of the tomb is fixed approximately by the death of the Countess, which occurred in 1496. The Count himself died in 1512, and he probably ordered the monument soon after his wife’s death. It bears the date MCCCCC.

Elizabeth, sister of the Countess Magdalena, daughter of Prince Albert Achilles, of Brandenburg, had married Count Hermann VIII. of Henneberg, and it is doubtless due to this relationship that the double tomb of husband and wife at Römhild was made from the same sketch and by the same craftsman as the memorial at Hechingen. It was indeed probably the earlier of the two. So at least Bergau argues, from the fact that it is nearer to the original sketch by Dürer. The Count, in this version of the design, holds a banner, the floating folds of which form an efficient background. The drapery of the Countess instead of being gathered up into her hands is caught up to her sides in graceful flowing folds.