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Lot Essay
Augustin Hirschvogel (1503-1553) came from a family of glass painters in Nuremberg. He trained in the family craft, then set up a workshop as a majolica painter in his native city. In the late 1530's we find him in the Balkans working as a cartographer for Ferdinand I. Having established close connections to the Imperial Court, he finally moved to Vienna, where he lived permanently from 1544. It was probably there that he started decorating arms and armour and began to work in the new print technique of etching.
He was one of the first printmakers of the German Renaissance to create landscape prints, views of buildings and scenery, without any religious or allegorical content, and indeed the first to execute them in pure etching. He grasped and took full advantage of the spontaneity of the etched line and his scenes are imbued with an almost nave immediacy, which was new to the medium. He thus stands at the beginning of a long tradition, lasting well into the 19th century, which considered etching as the natural printmaking method for the depiction of landscapes.
Very few impressions of Augustin Hirschvogel's landscapes appear to have survived and are today great rarities on the market. It is all the more unusual to find a whole group such as the present one.
However, this group of prints is proof that at least some of his plates survived until the end of the 16th century. The present impressions were all pulled at once and printed probably around 1600 in Austria. Interestingly, the extremely rare prints by the monogrammists CR (lot 29) and L.K. (lot 31), found in the same 19th century album, are on the same paper stock and must have been printed at the same workshop and at the same time.
Hollstein records a total of 20 impressions and three counterproofs of this print. To our knowledge, no impression has appeared at auction within the last 25 years.
He was one of the first printmakers of the German Renaissance to create landscape prints, views of buildings and scenery, without any religious or allegorical content, and indeed the first to execute them in pure etching. He grasped and took full advantage of the spontaneity of the etched line and his scenes are imbued with an almost nave immediacy, which was new to the medium. He thus stands at the beginning of a long tradition, lasting well into the 19th century, which considered etching as the natural printmaking method for the depiction of landscapes.
Very few impressions of Augustin Hirschvogel's landscapes appear to have survived and are today great rarities on the market. It is all the more unusual to find a whole group such as the present one.
However, this group of prints is proof that at least some of his plates survived until the end of the 16th century. The present impressions were all pulled at once and printed probably around 1600 in Austria. Interestingly, the extremely rare prints by the monogrammists CR (lot 29) and L.K. (lot 31), found in the same 19th century album, are on the same paper stock and must have been printed at the same workshop and at the same time.
Hollstein records a total of 20 impressions and three counterproofs of this print. To our knowledge, no impression has appeared at auction within the last 25 years.