the minor works of peter vischer the younger

some time during the year which followed the completion of the eissen monument, cardinal albrecht von brandenburg, archbishop of magdeburg and mainz, it is recorded, sent to the old bronze-founder of nuremberg requesting him to let his son come to him to confer about certain orders. whether the young peter went or not we do not know, nor is it certain whether it was his tomb which the cardinal had previously ordered, or the great state seal of the archbishop, which is with some probability ascribed to this craftsman, that was in debate. the tomb-plate of the cardinal was finished by 1525, and is now in the parish church of aschaffenburg, though it is at mainz that the cardinal was buried. for the fashion in tombs was changing, and, in order to be in the fashion, the cardinal subsequently ordered a new tomb of red marble beneath which he now lies in the cathedral of mainz.

“and i shall fill my slab of basalt there,

and ’neath my tabernacle take my rest,

with those nine columns round me, two and two,

the odd one at my feet where anselm stands;

87peach-blossom marble all, the rare, the ripe

as fresh-poured red wine of a mighty pulse....

true peach,

rosy and flawless.”

so the german cardinal shared the taste of browning’s roman bishop. it was a taste that spread rapidly from italy about this time, and brought in its train swift ruin to the industry of the bronze craftsmen. but the day of disaster had not yet come, and meantime the young peter vischer was busy with other works. he had not yet, however, succeeded in being admitted as a meister of the guild of coppersmiths, and he took the present opportunity of submitting the cardinal’s tomb-plate as his masterpiece. it was rejected for some obscure reason, just as, two years later, his splendid memorial of frederick the wise was rejected. both of these pieces are signed “opus m. petri fischers. norimberge.” in face of the fact that they were not accepted as masterpieces we cannot interpret the letter m. in these inscriptions as the initial of magistri (master). it must stand rather for minoris—“the work of peter fischer the younger.”

the present memorial takes the form of a life-size character-study of a mighty prince of the church, and it is set in a renaissance framework. it is a noble and intense piece of work which has been spoilt by the inscription tablet which covers the body.

unlike his father, but like most other artists of 88his day, peter vischer the younger, as we gather from neud?rffer’s mention of him, did not confine himself to bronze work, but dabbled in various kindred arts. we have a noticeable instance of this in the “allegory on the reformation” (1524), an aquarelle now preserved at weimar, which once roused the enthusiasm of goethe, and which reveals to us his political and religious creed. in common with hans sachs, albert dürer, and willibald pirkheimer, and the great majority of nurembergers, peter vischer had thrown in his lot with the protestant reformers, and boldly espoused the cause of luther. luther he here represents as some hero of old story who has destroyed the palace and upset the throne of the usurper, and scattered the base crowd of his courtiers. the pope and the mighty princes of the church have been put down from their seat and the horde of their hateful minions—pride, luxury, and avarice—flee away. in their stead faith, hope, and charity are about to enthrone justice, whilst luther, the humble and unworldly, shows the straight path to christ, who descends from the clouds to save publicans and sinners. rome’s might, it is implied, is broken; the german people can at last, through luther’s act, hold direct communion with their redeemer once more. only a german emperor, so it must have seemed to the german enthusiasts of that time, was wanting—no spaniard like charles v., with his brood of alien courtiers—to continue the work of luther 89and to fulfil the national ideal. and perhaps, as dr. seeger suggests, peter vischer the younger looked to frederick the wise, elector of saxony, as the heaven-appointed kaiser—that prince whose portrait he executed in so loving and masterly a fashion two years later.

that love of allegory which is indicated by this drawing, and by the artist’s addiction to poetry, was a taste he shared with dürer and holbein the younger. it is further illustrated by the two inkstands which come from his hand and, in a less degree, by the two plaquettes of orpheus and eurydice we have now to consider. (ill. 19 and 20.)

stein photo.] [plaquette in possession of m. dreyfus, paris

19. orpheus and eurydice

there are, indeed, four plaquettes on this subject in existence, all undoubtedly by the same master. but three of these are practically identical. the other, the earliest as it would appear, is in the possession of m. dreyfus of paris. it was at one time attributed to jacopo de’ barbari. but this, like the other plaquettes, bears vischer’s mark clearly enough—two fish lying back to back pierced through by a nail or dagger, a device found also on the two inkstands. the two nude figures of orpheus and eurydice do, however, undoubtedly owe very much to the influence of jacopo and sansovino on the one hand, just as they are related to the adam and eve of dürer on the other. in this earlier version of the subject it is evident that the artist has been moved by the above-mentioned influences to study the nude, but his study is not 91yet complete. for the modelling of the orpheus is not all that could be desired, the legs of this figure in particular being awkward and constrained. the eurydice is more successful, and is less hard and angular in treatment. but, as lübke observed, the parallelism produced by the presentation of the two forms in the act of turning lends a distinct harshness to the composition. for all that there is one quality present here which we have learnt to expect from this master. he has seized the dramatic moment when, in vergil’s words, “a sudden madness took hold of the unwary lover,” and, “in his desire to behold her, he turned his eyes” upon his half-regained eurydice. but he could not hold her safe “within the bond of one immortal look.” just as she emerges from the rocks of the underworld he yields to this desire and turns. and as he turns and looks she stops and begins, under the constraint of the inexorable law of proserpine, to be drawn back to the shades whence she came. into her face there has come a look of sorrow and sad reproach, whilst the movement of her hands and head and hair betoken the beginning of that inevitable return. with the gesture of her left hand eurydice seems almost to utter the lines of vergil:

“quis et me miseram et te perdidit, orpheu, quis tantus furor?

jamque vale—!”

stein photo.] [plaquette in the museum, berlin

20. orpheus and eurydice

the other version of this same subject to which peter vischer the younger returned apparently in 92later years is still more finely conceived and finely executed. the artist by this time, about the year 1520 let us say, had found his own soul and strength, and dared to be more himself. the berlin plaquette, which passed from the nagler collection to the berlin museum in 1835, is a great improvement upon the old theme. the composition is in all respects much more rhythmical and harmonious. orpheus has been stepping quickly forward, playing as only orpheus with his lute could play, playing for life and love and happiness, when suddenly the irresistible fear has come upon him that she, his half-regained eurydice, may not be following him. he has, under the spur of that doubt, flung round his head quickly to reassure himself. and she, even in that instant, begins to turn again towards those shadowy regions whence his music and his faith, so far maintained, had drawn her. reproachful, sorrowing, in the agony of her love and her despair, she gazes at him with one long last look. here the artist has turned the back-fluttering veil to a new and beautiful motive, and, like the arrangement of the hair and the treatment of the feet, it has been fittingly and carefully thought out to illustrate the two movements in which the tragedy of the moment lies. the style is essentially italianate, and the device of the two spiked fish in the corner of the plaquette proclaim the authorship of it. orpheus, it will be noticed, is not provided with the lute of antiquity but with a 94violin. this is not surprising, for there was a general tendency both in italian and german art to furnish mythical personages with modern musical instruments. lübke reminds us, for instance, of the apollo in raphael’s “parnassus.”

of the other two plaquettes to which we have referred, one is to be found in the hamburg museum, and the other was, till 1807, in st. blasien in the black forest, but is now preserved in the institution of st. paul in carinthia. they are almost exactly the same with the berlin copy. but the latter has a poetical inscription above on the upper edge which is absent from the example at st. paul.

the inscription, which a recollection of the fondness evinced by the young peter for the study of poetry inclines us to attribute to his pen, runs as follows:

orphea cvm silvis flvvios etsaxa[tn1] moventē

grecia laeteos fert adysse lavis

evrydicn?? illic vitae revocasse priori

servasset stigio si modo pacta iovi;

which, being roughly interpreted, is to the effect that orpheus, moving, according to the grecian fable, rocks and woods and rivers by his music, came to the infernal regions, and there had quite won back eurydice to life if only he had observed the conditions of the king of hades.

the hamburg exemplar has this inscription also, with a few literal variations, as, for instance, 95the mistake of saxo instead of saxa, and the correction of adiisse (which is necessary for the scansion of the line) in place of adysse.

stein photo.] [inkstand, ashmolean museum, fortnum collection, oxford

21. “earthly life”

a restless, uncontented care of doing better, which is the hall-mark of genius, is proclaimed in the spirit of the craftsman who thus turned again in his maturity to improve, and, if he could, to perfect the theme he had attempted in his youth. the same spirit is evident in the similar development of a theme which we find in the case of two bronze inkstands formerly in the possession of the late h. fortnum, esq., of stanmore, and now forming part of the fortnum collection, bequeathed by him to the ashmolean museum at oxford. the first was picked up by the collector in paris; the second in genoa. (ill. 21 and 22.) they are mentioned by christoph von murr[8] in 1778 as being in the collection of dr. silberrad at nuremberg, and are called by him “two admirable bas-reliefs in bronze by peter vischer.” he further describes the second, that is, the later, in the following terms: “it represents the reminding of the future life. near an urn, which might serve as an inkpot, stands a naked female figure, about six inches high, pointing towards heaven with her finger. in front of her a skull is lying, behind her a small shield and dagger. a beautiful idea. leaning against the urn is a tablet with the inscription ‘vitam non 96mortem recogita’” (think on life not death). “under the base is the sign of the master, two fish with the initials p.v. 1525.... both pieces are still just as they came from the foundry, and one must admire the accuracy and draughtsmanship 97which betray the hand of one who is a master of his craft.”

8. “beschreibung der vornehmsten merkwürdigkeiten,” quoted by seeger.

now if this female figure above mentioned is rightly interpreted as reminding us of the life to come, the heavenly life, we may regard it as a 98later and natural variation of the allegory of earthly life represented by the other and earlier work. there the female figure of life is standing with her foot upon a skull, trampling on the emblem of death, and is pointing to herself, gazing self-centred, as who should say, “enjoy life, think on me and forget the death that cometh with the morrow.” and on the tablet at her feet recurs the legend, “vitam non mortem recogita!” she is teaching the renaissance love of beauty and the lesson of the joy of existence and the frank delight in the things of this earth. probably, then, this work was executed shortly after the young craftsman’s sojourn in italy, when he was filled with the joy of life and had been studying the nude with all the enthusiasm of the early renaissance school. a mixture of early renaissance and of medi?val elements is indeed distinctly observable. for the four-cornered vase and its lid is eminently gothic in character. on the four under sides of the vase we find repeated the sign of the two fish which we have learnt to associate with peter vischer the younger, and on the four upper sides the same medallion of a man’s head. medallions, we know, peter vischer the younger turned his hand to frequently after his return from italy. the medusa head with the winged helmet, and the club on the base, recall the style of sansovino, whilst the lion’s feet on which the vase rests, and much of the decoration, correspond with details on the sebaldusgrab. the pose and the rhythmic 99movement of the female form are beautiful in themselves, but the neck of the figure is too thick and the body excessively short. when, ten or fifteen years later (1525), the craftsman with a deepened sense of the mystery and sorrow of the world returned to this theme, he read a new meaning into that favourite motto of his, “think on life not death,” and he also remedied in great part the faults of his earlier effort. the figure, indeed, remains still too short in comparison with its breadth, but it is far slimmer than the other; the work is much more delicate, the lines less accentuated. the artist is now a wiser, sadder, more spiritual man. with his feeling and his knowledge of the world, his power also and his freedom have increased and his mastery of modelling. the influence of his brother’s journey to rome and of the lessons he had brought home with him, is evident everywhere, and not least in the striving after simplicity which has induced him to leave the base plain and not richly ornamented as was the former one.

stein photo.] [inkstand, ashmolean museum, fortnum collection, oxford

22. “heavenly life”

the theme itself can indeed hardly be called a development but rather the counterpart of the other. it is the answer of the spiritual side of man to the earthly promptings of his nature. think not on this life nor on this death—but on the other life. in obedience to this point of view the skull has been placed in a more prominent position. it is no longer trampled on in the ecstasy of earthly enjoyment but recognized rather, and 100triumphed over, by this upward-gazing vita, upward pointing. death, it is meant, should be used, and welcomed almost, as the gate of heavenly life. the many deaths that had darkened the doors of his own house had, it is probable, sobered and saddened peter vischer’s great son, and perhaps his own failing health or some premonition of an early death, was by this time leading him to reflect in a chastened yet hopeful spirit on the motto that he loved, and to interpret it afresh in this allegorical wise: “vitam non mortem recogita.” it was the motto inscribed upon his grave in st. rochus church when he died but three years later, and was laid to rest by his aged father.