. So far as we know, he executed four plates only (c. 1480-1485). In them the characterization is strong, the drawing clear and vigorous. The artist’s technique may have owed something to Martin Schongauer, but it is singularly lacking in the refinement and balance which mark the work of that engraver.
Daniel Hopfer, who, in 1493, was already working in Augsburg, has left us an etching, which certainly cannot be later than 1504, and may have been executed five, or even ten, years earlier. It is a portrait of Kunz von der Rosen, the Jester-Adviser of the Emperor Maximilian I. The etching is upon iron, and the quality of the line is well adapted to the rugged character of the personage. This plate was copied, in reverse, with some modifications, by an anonymous North Italian engraver and reappears as Gonsalvo of Cordova, who was in Italy, in command of the army of Ferdinand V of Castile, between 1494 and 1504, when Ferdinand’s jealousy caused him to be superseded in the Vice Royalty of Naples.
MASTER
. HEAD OF A YOUNG WOMAN
Size of the original engraving, 4¾ × 3⅜ inches
In the Royal Print Room, Berlin
ALBRECHT DÜRER. ALBERT OF BRANDENBURG
Size of the original engraving, 5¾ × 3⅞ inches
In the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston