The memory of Peter Vischer is deservedly honoured by his townsmen. The street in which his house is situated, like that in which Dürer’s stands, has lost its original name, and is now only known as “Peter Vischer’s Strasse;” but these two artists are the only ones thus distinguished.[234-*] Vischer was born in 1460, and died in 1529. He was employed by the warden of St. Sebald’s, and magistrate of Nürnberg, Sebald Schreyer, to construct this work in honour of his patron saint; he began it in 1506, and finished it in 1519. Thirteen years of labour were thus devoted to its completion, for which he received seven hundred and seventy florins. “According to tradition, Vischer was miserably paid for this great work of labour and art; and he has himself recorded in an inscription upon the monument, that ‘he completed it for the praise of God Almighty alone, and the honour of St. Sebald, Prince of Heaven, by the aid of pious persons, paid by their voluntary contributions.’”[235-*] The elaboration of the entire work is marvellous; it abounds with fanciful figures, seventy-two in number, disposed among the ornaments, or acting as supporters to the general composition. Syrens hold candelabra at the angles; and the centre has an air of singular lightness and grace. It is supported at the base by huge snails. At the western end there is a small bronze statue of Vischer, which we copy ([Fig. 247]): he holds his chisels in his hand, and in his workman’s dress, with capacious, leather apron, stands unaffectedly forth as a true, honest labourer, appealing only to such sympathies as are justly due to one who laboured so lovingly and so well.
Sharing the palm with Vischer for perfect mastery in sculpture (the one as a worker in metal, the other in stone) stands Adam Krafft, whose works are still the principal ornaments of the city. To him were his fellow-townsmen indebted for the grand gate of the Frauenkirche, the series of sculptures on the “Via Dolorosa,” numerous others in the churches and public buildings, but principally for the “Sacramentshauslein,” in the Church of St. Laurence ([Fig. 248]). This marvellous work is placed against a pillar beside the high altar, and is intended as a receptacle for the consecrated bread and wine in its service; a small gallery runs round the lower portion, in which the “host” is kept; over this the sculpture ascends upwards in a series of tapering columns and foliage of the most light and fanciful description, until it reaches the spring of the arched roof, where the crowning pinnacle “bows its beautiful head like the snowdrop on its stem,” in the curve of the arch, gracefully completing a work which, for originality, delicacy, and the most extraordinary elaboration of design, is a perfect marvel of stone-carving. The foliations are so flowing and delicate, that it has given rise to a popular tradition that Krafft was possessed of some secret for making stone plastic. We have nothing so delicate in this country, unless it be some of the leaflets on the Percy shrine, and screen of Beverley Minster. Krafft’s leaves are as thin and delicate, as crisp and free, as if moulded from nature in plaster of Paris, while the grand curves of his ornamental adjuncts are astonishing, when we reflect on the mass of stone necessarily cut away to produce these boldly-flowing enrichments. Krafft was born at Ulm in 1430, and died 1507. His father was the printer, Ulrich Krafft. He commenced this work in the year 1496, and completed it in 1500. In it we see the perfect mastery produced by a life of labour, and in front of it he has sculptured his own effigy, kneeling, mallet in hand, and supporting his favourite work. There is a touching simplicity in this union of the artist and his labours, made in these instances all the more impressive by its utter want of pretension. There is no affectation—no studied artistic or classical portraying; we have simply the man and his work before us, appealing by their dumb native eloquence to that homage and love, which are their due by their own inherent greatness.
