i Reprinted fromiArt in America. June, 1917. v. 5, no,4. VS r V TWO GERMAN TAPESTRIES AFTER MICHAEL WOLGEMUTH • BY RUDOLF MEYER RIEFSTAHL /) THE German tapestries of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries have scarcely been studied. Since the few notes of Miintz^ in his "Histoire generale de la Tapisserie," and since Lessing's •'Wandteppiche und Decken des Mittelalters in Deutschland," ^ nothing of importance has been published. German tapestries cer- tainly are not as rich and beautiful as are those from Northern France and Flanders; they never had the international importance of the ''Arazzi," but follow a modest local tradition of charming naivete and originality. One of the problems connected with the history of German tapestry is the question whether or not German artists, like Wolge- muth, Diirer and Holbein, have designed cartoons for tapestry weaving. This problem was recognized in 1843 by Waagen,^ who noted the style of Wolgemuth in a tapestry of the Adoration of the Magi, formerly in the Reider Collection in Bamberg, Bavaria, now in the National Museum in Munich. Waagen's observation has been repeated by Rettberg,'* Muentz,'' and Otto von Falke;^ it has been criticised by Guififrey,' who says in his history of tapestry from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries: "It is a mere hypothesis to attribute the model of the Munich tapestry to Wolgemuth. We have to wait for more convincing proofs than those which have been brought forward hitherto to give evidence that Wolgemuth, Diirer and Holbein were asked to work for the tapestry weave'rs. The thing itself is not unlikely, but we have no certitude, and we will perhaps never get it." Guiflfrey's observation was right: an undisputable connection of German tapestry art with the work of one of these masters had not yet been proved. We have succeeded in furnishing this proof at least for Michael Wolgemuth, the master of Diirer. We have found two German tapestries which are exact copies of works of Wolge- muth; the copy is so exact and so identical in method that both 1 Eugene Miintz, Histoire generale de la Tapisserie, Allemagne, p. 8. 2 Julius Lessing, Wandteppiche und Decken des Mittelalters in Deutschland. 3 G. F. Waagen, Kunstwerke und Kiinstler in Deutschland, vol. I, Leipzig 1843, p. 117. * V. Rettberg, Niirnberger Briefe, Hannover 1846, p. 150. 6 Eugene Miintz, La Tapisserie (Bibliotheque de I'enseignement des Beaux Arts), pp. 175-176. 6 O. V. Falke in Lehnert, Illustrierte Geschichte des Kunstgewerbes, I, p. 347. 7 Jules Guiffrey, Les tapisseries du 12e a la fin du 16e siecle, p. 173. i8i 360560 tapestries must have come from the same loom. The first be- longs to the collection of Miss C. Timkin in New York; we are obliged to Miss Timkin, who kindly permitted a close examination of her tapestry. The second tapestry was published in the Burling- ton Magazine, November, 1907.^ Gaston Migeon^ stated that it had passed to the Metropolitan Museum in New York; the tapestry is not there, and we do not know its present whereabouts. Both tapestries are direct copies of woodcuts by Wolgemuth and Pleydenwurfif in the famous Niirnberg Chronicle by Hart- man Schedel, published in 1493 by Anton Koberger, the great Niirn- berg editor.^ Both tapestries are consequently not made after car- toons by Wolgemuth, but they give evidence that Wolgemuth's illustrations of the Chronicle have inspired the German tapestry weavers. It is well known that a similar relation exists between the French miniature painters and the French masters of haute-lisse, and we hope to publish very soon a series of Italian tapestries of the fourteenth century in which a similar relation can be stated between the fresco painters of the School of Giotto and the earliest Italian tapestries. It is not astonishing that a famous book like the Niirn- berg Chronicle became a source of inspiration for the tapestry weav- ers. The German weavers of the fifteenth century were far from having a huge organization, like those of Flanders and Northern France. A certain number of the German tapestries must have been made in convents; two tapestries, one in the National Museum in Munich, the other belonging to the Cathedral in Bamberg, show in one corner a nun sitting before the tapestry loom; others may have been woven by skilful housewives in cities and castles, and we know also that in cities like Basel or Niirnberg, weaving was done in a professional way on a small scale. The tapestry belonging to Miss Timkin (Fig. i) represents the Judgment of Solomon. It is 55 inches high and 96 inches wide. It is of medium quality and there are eleven or twelve warp threads to the inch. The tapestry is executed in wool ; silk is not employed except in some modern repair. A good quantity of silver thread has been used to mark the lights on garments and headdresses. The 1 C. H. W. in Burlington Magazine, XII, Nov., 1907, p. 101. 2 Gaston Migeon, Les arts du tissu, p. 264. 3 Liber chronicarum by Hartman Schedel : "Hunc librum dominus Anthonius Koberger Nuremberge impressit. Adhibitis tamen vivis mathematicis pingendique arte peritissimis, Michaele Wolgemuth et Wilhelmo pleydenwurff. . . . Consummatum autem duodecima mensis julii anno salutis nostre 1493." 182 -^ ii X < H n o O ■< ? w g > > > M 13 ^ ^ lis r- H • •• S '-' Ex] ^ K (J CO o f- < < u O CD as ^ Q D Q « tapestry is in a good state of preservation and is without the least doubt a weave of the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century. The number of colors employed is not very great: we count dark blue, medium blue, light blue, dark green, medium green, yellow and pale yellow, dark brown, medium brown, light brown, dark crimson, light crimson, vermilion and light vermilion, light mauve and pink. Black seems to be employed only in the restoration. The silver thread is a silk thread overspun with thin flat metal wire. With these few colors a considerable number of shades have been obtained by elaborate hatchings. Sometimes two threads of different color are twisted together and then employed; in other cases two or four threads'of different shades are alternately interwoven, forming thus the shade intended by the weaver. The tapestry is surrounded by an old border of plain red, green and light yellow stripes. On the upper side is a border of scroll work with grapes, which we find also on the left and right side. On the bottom of the tapestry this scroll-work border has not been added by the weaver. The composition itself is an exact copy of a woodcut by Wolgemuth in the Niirnberg Chronicle, folio 47b (Fig. 2). All the details, including the brocade behind the throne of Solomon, the glass win- dows in the background, and the costumes, have been taken over by the tapestry weaver, who added his own coloring. Only one figure has been added in the left corner of the tapestry to balance the composition, a huge bearded Turk holding a large sword. This figure, too, has been borrowed from another woodcut in the Niirn- berg Chronicle, representing Mahomet, folio 151b (Fig. 3). There this personage seems to be a bodyguard of ''Machometus homo perniciosissimus," as he is called by Hartman Schedel. This attend- ant of Mahomet is given reversed on the tapestry. The scene of the Judgment itself is reproduced without changing the right and the left of the original. The second tapestry (Fig. 6) was published by C. H. W. in the Burlington Magazine, November, 1907, page loi. Our repro- duction is made after that of the Burlington Magazine. The tapes- try is said to have been discovered in a crypt of a church in Spain. The whole article by C. H. W. is extremely superficial and incon- sistent. The main part of the article is a long, tedious historical research which comes to the conclusion that the tapestry belongs to a scries of tapestries representing the most important events of the 187 reign of the German emperor Frederick III (1452-1493). The tapestry is the representation of the Coronation of the Emperor (1452). The emperor was crowned by Pope Nicholas V, and not by Enea Sylvio Piccolomini, who became pope only in 1458. But as a number of years had elapsed since this coronation, the tapestry weaver put Enea on the tapestry instead of Nicholas V. The Mar- grave of Brandenburg is represented with the coat of arms of Saxony. C. H. W. explains this by the statement "that the Margravate of Brandenburg, until it came into the possession of the ancestor of the present German Emperor, was part of the Kingdom of Saxony. Fortunately the identification of this personage is not essential. The Saxon arms and the electoral cap sufficiently declare his position in the empire." The author then concludes: "The style is decidedly characteristic of Flemish work of the second half of the fifteenth century, although the general conception of the design and the exe- cution of the details are inferior to that of the best specimens of the Flemish tapestry weavers' art of that period." All this is wrong. A look at the photograph shows that the design of this tapestry is typically German, and the entire historical dissertation is useless. The presence of Enea Sylvio Piccolomini and Frederick III is explained very simply by the fact that the entire scene with all the details, including the brocade in the background, is copied from the woodcut (Fig. 4) in Hartman Schedel's Chron- icle, on folio 267b. In the last part of the Chronicle the learned Niirnberg doctor gives an extract from a work which Enea Sylvio published in 1458 about remarkable events in Germany and Europe in the time of Frederick III. This part of the Chronicle is opened by a very fine full-page woodcut in which the pope and the emperor are represented sitting together on the same throne. Their names are indicated exactly as on the tapestry, with the words "Eneas pius papa" and "Fridericus tercius romanorum imperator." On the next page begins the prooemium of Eneas' book. On the right side of the tapestry is represented one of the electors of the Empire, the "Palatinus Reni," the Count of the Palatinate; on the left side an- other elector, the "Marchio Brandenburgensis," the Margrave of Brandenburg. The Count of the Palatinate holds three dishes in his hands which do not refer (as stated by C. H. W.) to the Coronation Ceremony of Frederick III, but are the usual attribute of the Count of the Palatinate, as "Dapifer," or cupbearer of the Holy Roman 188 X O M « > d W '^ ►n Empire. At the foot of this personage is a shield with a coat of arms which even the experience in heraldics of Mr. Robert T. Nichol of the Metropolitan Museum was not able to identify. The Margrave of Brandenburg holding the key, the symbol of the Chamberlain of the Empire, is very strangely represented with the coat of arms of Saxony. We do not need to go into a long historical research about the different branches of the Ascanian family which reigned in Brandenburg and Saxony, to explain this anomaly. The explanation is much simpler. Both figures are copied from a wood- cut (Fig. 5) in Hartman Schedel's Chronicle, folios 283b and 284a which illustrates the chapter "de Institutione electorum imperii," and on which all the electors of the Holy Roman Empire are repre- sented. In Hartman Schedel's woodcut the Palatinus Reni has the correct coat of arms with a rampant lion. The Margrave of Brandenburg has the correct coat of arms of the red eagle of Bran- denburg to his right. To his left stands the Duke of Saxony with his correct coat of arms. As our tapestry weaver, for the reason of symmetry, needed the Margrave of Brandenburg with a shield to his left, he simply copied him with the coat of arms of his left neigh- bor in the Chronicle. Thus the great historical problem of C. H. W. explains itself in a very simple way. The three groups of the tapestry are separated by Gothic col- umns and arches. Above and at the bottom is a charming mille-fleur decoration. The inscriptions are exactly the same as in the Chron- icle. The(oTc^apeTt1yls^urrounded by ^JfBorder with naturalistic flowers. We know only the reproduction of this tapestry, and are consequently not allowed to make a definite statement, but it is highly probable that this tapestry comes from the same loom as that of Miss Timkin. The adjustment of elements from different wood- cuts of the Chronicle is identically the same in both tapestries. There is nothing Flemish in it. Both tapestries are German, were made after 1493, the date of the publication of the Chronicle, and to judge from their appearance belong to the late fifteenth or the very early sixteenth century. 191 ij^lS ■DA.1^