New Additions August 2011

Augustin Hirschvogel

1548

FECI ANNO MDXXXXVIII

Inscription below Portrait :

HIC AUGUSTINI PICTA EST PICTORIS IMAGO

ILLE NOVEM POSTQUA VIXIT OLIMPIADAS

["This Portrait shows the image of the Painter Augustin

After he had lived through the cycle of nine Olympiads"]

15 x 22.2 cms. Closely cropped as often the case but in this instance unfortunately with the lower part of the engraving/plate completely lacking (circa 5cms), leaving the image trimmed below the two line inscription which is still present on the base below the bust-like portrait. A few faint foxing spots  but etched on finely watermarked 16th Century paper. Traces of old brown paper tabs from previous mounting at corners on verso. Small unobtrusive purple circular ink stamp (collector's stamp?) to lower left corner adjacent to mount tab. Despite the defects, an exceptionally rare and important 16th Century portrait.  

A beautifully executed Renaissance self-portrait by the German artist, engraver and cartographer Augustin Hirschvogel [1503-1553]. The inscription in the top left corner of the portrait indicates that it was engraved in 1548 when Hirschvogel would have been in his mid 40's. However , the image appears to depict Hirschvogel as a somewhat younger man, perhaps some ten years younger when he was in his mid to late 30's, if the slightly cryptic inscription below the portrait is to be believed and taken literally. The inscription indicates that it shows the artist when he had lived through the cycle of nine Olympiads (4 years), i.e was 36+ years.

Hirschvogel had been born in Nuremberg in 1503, the son of the important local glass engraver, Veit Hirschvogel the Elder [1461-1525]. He initially trained as an artist and engraver in his father's workshops, whose business suffered as a result of the emergent Protestant Reformation. By the time of his father's death in 1525 the workshop was run by Augustin's brother, Veit the Younger, and by 1530 he had set up his own workshop in association with two local potters. In 1536 Hirschvogel moved to Laibach (Ljubljana) in Slovenia, returning to Nuremberg in 1543. During this period his first cartographic projects came to fruition, with the engraving and publication of two fine maps of the Turkish Borders [1539] and Austria [1542], the latter commissioned by Emperor Ferdinand I. In 1544 he moved to Vienna, the seat of the Imperial Court, and over the next four years was employed in the building and design of bastions and defences for the Vienna City walls and in the drawing and etching of several detailed views and panoramas of Vienna. In the aftermath of the Turkish Siege of 1543, Hirschvogel also received a commission from the Viennese authorities to survey and map the whole City, and his new and highly detailed circular map, circa 1547/9, painted onto wood with ink and tempera, and still preserved in the Vienna Museum, was amongst the first to use triangulation and some of the fundamental tenets and techniques of modern surveying which Hirschvogel devised himself. The map was received with such acclaim that he was directed to the Courts of both Ferdinand I in Prague and Charles V in Augsburg to explain the methods and techniques that he had employed in its production. As a result Ferdinand granted him a pension of 100 gulden. An etched version of the plan of Vienna on 6 sheets was published in 1552. In his final years, Hirschvogel developed his talents as an artist,  and is now recognized as one of the leaders of the so-called Danube school. Some 100 finely detailed pen and ink landscapes are attributed to him and his work is believed to have influenced the likes of Albrecht Durer, Sebald Beham and Hans Burkmair.

This fine self-portrait also references Hirschvogel's important contribution to Humanist thinking and to his role s a  leading Renaissance scientist, theorist and academic, particularly in the field of  mathematics, perspective and geometry. The  symbols of his craft, the globe and dividers, are placed on a precisely marked & graduated plinth in front of his bust-like profile, beside which are inscribed  the words "Circula mensurat Omnia" (the Circle Measures all things). This may be an allusion to Hirschvogel's own illustrated book on Perspective and Geometry,  Ein aigentliche und gruntliche anweysung in die Geometria (A true and thorough instruction in Geometry) which had been published in Nuremberg in 1543. He was also widely renowned and recognized for his skills as a scientific instrument maker. A further playful allusion to his name is given in the feathered wings and hooves which adorn the corners of the decorative panel below the bust (sadly here partially cropped). Hirsch (= hoof) and Vogel (= bird), a very literal and symbolic coat of arms. Hirschvogel was also a highly skilled etcher, and is perhaps most widely known through 23 of his plates which illustrate the 1549 edition of Sigismund von Herberstein's "Rerum Noscoviticarum Commentarii". He was one of the first to use copper plates for his etching, as opposed to iron. Hirshvogel himself appears in a fur-lined coat or cloak, facing to the left, with well-groomed beard and moustache, long nose and pleasant softly drawn features, a true Renaissance polymath : artist, etcher, scientist, mathematician, cartographer and Renaissance humanist all rolled into one. In all, despite the condition issues, this remains a superbly executed and exceedingly scarce Renaissance self-portrait by one of the leading artistic and scientific luminaries of the early 16th Century.