Beschreibung
Woodcut recto 235 x 172 mm, on laid paper without watermark, cut along the framing line on three sides and ca. 30 mm within it at bottom, on a portion of a leaf with rubricated text verso of a Preface to the Canon, 18 lines over 150 mm, with 5-line woodcut pictorial initial P 42 x 40 mm, followed by nine manuscript lines of an oratio to the Virgin in apparently a contemporaneous German hand. The impression of the woodcut is well printed, showing minor wear in the fine lines in the upper register. The letterpress verso is printed clearly, darkly and evenly, so that both recto and verso of the sheet suggest a first edition issue. The crisply-penned oratio is fluid and unfaded. The sheet is uniformly age-darkened to a light tan color and, apart from its being cut from a larger leaf, is otherwise in very good condition, without foxing or soiling recto or verso (saving one tiny spot recto in the rays above the crown). Citing the earlier cataloguing by J.D. Passavant, Le Peintre Graveur, vol. iii, p. 241, no. 63 (1862), Campbell Dodgson included this woodcut by Hans Springinklee in his Catalogue of Early German and Flemish Woodcuts, vol. 1, p. 411, no. 79 (1903), by reference to a photograph of the impression (266 x 169 mm) in the collection of King Friedrich August II at Dresden. Dodgson also lists the impression in the Kunsthalle, Hamburg with text on the back printed in red and black, from a missal. He observes (ibid., at p. 370): "[M]uch of Springinklee's work is to be found in illustrations published about 1515-1522 for the publishing firm founded by Koberger, whose books at that time were printed partly at Nuremberg by J. Stüchs and F. Peypus, partly at Lyons by Clein, Sacon, and Marion. [A]s a rule, he is at his best when most directly inspired by Dürer." New Hollstein (Hans Springinklee vol. I, pp. 2-3, no. 1, 2010) adds two further impressions of this woodcut to Dodgson's three and cites a Paris impression as 265 x 171 mm. The full prints are signed with the initials HSK in ligature in the block lower right. Thus the present impression is trimmed 30 mm on the bottom, excising the signature and an area filled mostly with ruled or blank background. The bottom 30 mm may have been cut from this impression by a former owner wanting to assert Dürer's ostensible authorship. (Several wood engravings formerly assigned to Dürer are now given to Springinklee, and at least one formerly given to Springinklee is now given to Dürer.) A much more medieval rendering was the frontispiece of the printer-publisher Anton Koberger's Liber Chronicarum ("Nuremberg Chronicle") of 1493, wood-engraved by Michael Wolgemut, a master of the young Dürer. The text of the Praefatio on the verso of the present woodcut follows exactly a form for weekdays and simple feasts (absent another assigned form) in the Missale Romanum Mendiolani 1474. It is printed with fonts matching very closely fonts used by Koberger in the 1493 Liber Chronicarum. Koberger ceased printing around 1504 and died in 1513, but his prodigious publishing house, continued by Johann Koberger, continued to publish other printers using his formats. (See Proctor, Early Printed Books Part II Section I (1903) at p. 94 and under Georg Stüchs and Friedrich Peypus, inter alia.) No copy of a missal has been located in digitized bibliographies or catalogues with an indication of a woodcut like the present. However, there could plausibly exist printings of a missal published by Koberger's house or circle with his fonts and with woodcuts from Dürer's circle, including specifically the present woodcut and letterpress. Exceeded by the superb impression, apparently on vellum, formerly in the collection of King Friedrich August II at Dresden, the present woodcut in turn appears to exceed the Paris impression illustrated in New Hollstein. Given the few catalogued European impressions and the open quest to identify the parent missal, this sheet is a consequential survival. Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers ABE-1536762307596
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