Almost a missing link between the most celebrated pioneer engravers of the fifteenth century, Master ES and Martin Schongauer, is a less familiar figure, the Upper Rhenish printmaker Israhel van Meckenem (1440/1445-1503). Although recipient of discussion, for example by Peter Parshall (as “entrepreneurial printmaker and pirate” in The Renaissance Print, 1994, pp. 56-63), and as the subject of a serious exhibition catalogue, edited by Achim Riether (Munich: Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, 2006), Meckenem’s prolific career poses basic issues about the range of early print images and the early print market.

Van Vleck Curator James Wehn has produced a re-examination of Van Meckenem in his richly researched catalogue essay (also accessible to a general public) and this impressive loan exhibition at the Chazen Museum. Two new prints (nos. 12, 14), now owned by the Chazen, highlight the exhibition itself. But equally important is Dr. Wehn’s important essay about the artist. Trained as a goldsmith, Israhel was quick to recognize the range of potential uses for printmaking. Among his innovations is the earliest engraved self-portrait, alongside his wife Ida (no. 1). That identity assertion carried over to his recognizable trademark IvM or IM or even his full name in much of his output; sometimes he also notes his city location, Bocholt. Wehn also traces Israhel’s development (p. 8, n. 14), noting that his early use of outline contours and parallel hatchings (e.g. in an early series, Life of Christ, nos. 21-25), but then shifts in later engravings to curved hatchings and thicker lines with denser cross-hatchings in the 1490s. The catalogue supplies approximate dates for each displayed engraving.

At least as important as his own inventions were Israhel’s copies after earlier masters, especially after drypoints by the elusive Master of the Amsterdam Cabinet, but also Master ES, Schongauer, and the early Albrecht Dürer. Meckenem’s copper plate after Dürer’s Four Nude Women (1497) accompanies the Meckenem print itself. His Life of the Virgin series (nos. 31-32) also draws on designs (lost) by Hans Holbein the Elder of Augsburg, in a process that anticipates the reproductive print shop model later during the following century in both Rome (Antonio Lafreri) and Antwerp (Hieronymus Cock).^[1] Van Meckenem even acquired plates by other masters, reworked and sometimes altered for additional impressions (nos. 40-41). Obviously, this practice preceded any limitations, such as local privilege, on copying.

In terms of subjects, Meckenem certainly catered to contemporary religious use of visual images. This topic is well discussed by Wehn in his essay. The large Madonna of the Rosary (no. 3) adopted the recent prayer practice and also included an indulgence text in Latin for prayers before it. A similar indulgenced image is a late, spectacular, two-sheet Mass of St. Gregory (no. 57) with a Latin inscription below, and the same veneration carried over to a smaller Man of Sorrows (no. 63), understood as the vision appearing before the saint. Another unusual work, Madonna with the Clock (no. 4), points to the newer mechanical measures of time.^[2] Several Meckenem series of religious narratives, such as the Life of the Virgin, Life of Christ, or Passion, follow the precedent of Schongauer, and some of those found their way as pasted illustrations into prayerbooks or albums (fig. 5). Of course, conventional individual devotional images of Christ and his apostles (nos. 12-14, 26-28) as well as locally venerated individual saints, such as St. Elizabeth of Thuringia (no. 6) or St. Quirinius (no. 5), comprised a basic market staple.

Meckenem continued the pattern book tradition adopted by some early engravers, such as Master ES, to make his own designs for goldsmiths (nos. 16b-17, 42, 61 – after Master W with the Key), including ornament prints (nos. 58). But he was also quick to adopt the increasing European fascination with rival Ottomans, also featured in the contemporary woodcut illustrations in the travel guide by Bernhard von Breydenbach, Peregrinatio in terram sanctam (1486).^[3] His Head of a Man Wearing a Turban (no. 2), complements near-contemporary works by the Master of the Amsterdam Cabinet as well as the young Dürer (Five Soldiers and a Turk on Horseback, no. 53). Wehn also displays righteous religious conflicts: Judith with the Head of Holofernes (no. 54) and Schongauer’s St. James Battling Muslims at Clavijo (no. 55).

Innovative subjects, such as the late series of couples, loosely labeled Scenes from Everyday Life (nos. 50-51), or Children’s Games (no. 48) show early fondness for the emerging category of genre imagery. Some works, such as Dance in the Court of Herod (no. 40) mingle foreground courtly genre with background religious narrative. Some of the artist’s most splendid engravings, displaying his full mastery of the medium, combine ornament with various figures against dark backgrounds: Morris Dancers, Tree of Jesse, Two Lovers, and Flower with Wild Folk (nos. 44-47). A final unusual print (no. 8) illustrates Proverbs and Psalms, with texts as both banderoles and inscriptions below a series of individual figures, workers flanked by King David and a court fool with a cat. Its message warns viewers about deceitful tradesmen and the moral importance of honesty over riches.

This informative and topical overview of Israhel van Meckenem need not be confined to the walls of the Chazen Museum in Madison. Through a generous grant from the Kress Foundation, this attractive catalogue will be free for the asking, while supplies last at the Museum. It certainly deserves this wider audience. Email reception@chazen.wisc.edu to request a copy of the catalogue.

Larry Silver
University of Pennsylvania

 

^[1] Katharina Krause, Hans Holbein der Ältere (Munich, 2002), pp. 32-46. For Lafreri, Christopher Witcombe, Print Publishing in Sixteenth-Century Rome (Turnhout, 2008); for Cock, Joris van Grieken, Ger Luijten, and Jan van der Stock, eds., Hieronymus Cock. The Renaissance in Print, exh. cat. (Louvain–Paris, 2013).
^[2] David Landes, Revolution in Time. Clocks and the Making of the Modern World (Cambridge, MA, 1983); Arno Borst, The Ordering of Time (Chicago, 1993).
^[3] Elizabeth Ross, Picturing Experience in the Early Printed Book (University Park, PA, 2014). For the general phenomenon, James Harper, ed., The Turk and Islam in the Western Eye, 1450-1750 (Farnham, 2011); Larry Silver, Europe Views the World (London, 2022), pp. 27-55.