Tue Aug 7, 2018 09:04 AM

Morning Modelbuch (8/7/2018)

I’ve been looking around for the last few weeks trying to find a particular border with cupids/putti in it that I swear I saw but can’t remember where because I want to point out the artist Barthel Beham. I keep coming close but not quite there, so I’m just going to talk about him anyway.

So, there’s this portrait done in chalk and colored pencil of Jacobea of Baden by Barthel Beham. It’s held in the Albertina Museum in Austria. She’s got a border of cupids on her brustfleck. I first ran across it in Margaret Abegg’s book _Apropos Patterns_ and she has it next to a semi-similar border from Egenolff that is one of the so called “Cranach Borders” that show up in the very first books, including Schonsberger in 1524. There are similar ones in the Calepino book I posted yesterday as well. So cool, German dress with embroidery similar to Modelbuch. Makes sense, and you’ve mentioned those before Hastings.

What makes this a little more interesting to me is that Beham isn’t best known as a portrait artist (although he is a good one and this chalk drawing doesn’t begin to show that.) He’s primarily known as an engraver. Part of a group referred to as the Little Masters, he engraved collectors prints that were meant to be kept in albums. Some as tiny as a postage stamp and incredibly detailed. He also spent time in Rome as well as Germany and died in Italy. I enjoy seeing the cyclical nature of things with the major cross pollination. So, here’s the drawing from 1534 and several of his engravings to compare and contrast with other engravers and the patterns they were creating. http://sammlungenonline.albertina.at/?query=Inventarnummer=[17553]&showtype=record