Nuremberg Chronicle 1493 - The Polish Region /... Lot 4

Nuremberg Chronicle 1493 - The Polish Region / Description: De Sarmacia regione Europe. De Regno Polonie et eius initio. Hartmann Schedel (1440-1514), Nuremberg, 12 July 1493. Folium CCLXXXVIIII . Decorative sheet of a beautiful landscape with a bird’s eye view of Sarmatia and Polish castles, located above an imaginary river that joins the sea. Below, under the symbols of royal power and on the back, a brief history and description of geography and Polish in Latin (listed cities, Kraków, Gdańsk, Malbork). The territory, known as Sarmatia to Greco-Roman ethnographers, corresponds to the western part of greater Scythia ( modern Southern Russia, Ukraine, and the eastern Balkans ). At their greatest reported extent, around 100 BC, these tribes ranged from the Vistula River to the mouth of the Danube and eastward to the Volga, bordering the shores of the Black and Caspian seas as well as the Caucasus to the south. This sheet comes from the Schedel’s Nuremberg Chronicle, printed by Koberger in 1493 in Nuremberg. The Nuremberg Chronicles was the first printed history of the known world with about 2000 woodcuts the most picturesque work of the early time of printing. It became one of the most popular books of the 15th. century. Latin text. / Dimensions: 41,00 x 27,00 cm Excellent impression in good condition with some worm holes in the left maregin and a bit soiled at the edges. / Literature: Literature: Michel Wolgemut, Painter, designer of woodcuts. At an early stage of his career he is thought to have assisted Hans Pleydenwurff (c. 1420-72) in Nuremberg. In 1473 he married Hans Pleydenwurff's widow, thereby inheriting this artist's workshop. Wolgemut taught Albrecht Dürer from 1486 to 1489. That Dürer held his master in high esteem is implied in a letter he wrote in 1506 from Venice to his friend Willibald Pirckheimer in Nuremberg, in which he recommends Wolgemut as a teacher for his younger brother Hans Dürer. Dürer also painted a portrait of Wolgemut in 1519. Wolgemut's stepson, Wilhelm Pleydenwurff (c. 1458-94), worked with him and by 1491 had become his partner. The Wolgemut workshop was the most active in Nuremberg during this period. Documented altarpieces for several churches. Together with Wilhelm Pleydenwurff, Wolgemut was responsible for the production of the woodblocks for Hartmann Schedel's 'Weltchronik' published in 1493 by Anton Koberger in Nuremberg (Text from Bartrum 1995). Bibliography: Rowlands 1993; Neudörfer, Nachrichten, pp. 128-30; Thieme-Becker, xxxvi, 1947, pp. 175ff.; xxxvii, 1950, p. 306 (for further literature); Gerd Betz, Der Nürnberger Maler Wolgemut und seine Werkstatt (typescript dissertation), Freiburg, 1955; Stange, ix, 1958, pp. 51-60; Bellm, Skizzenbuch; Bellm, Schatzbehalter, Austin, Nuremberg, pp. 92ff; Bartrum, BM 1995.A basic bibliography on Wolgemut is provided by Matthias Mende, Dürer-Bibliographie, Wiesbaden, 1971, nos 5808-30. Early literature on the prints is given in Campbell Dodgson, I, p. 241. A more recent discussion of Wolgemut, as well as Pleydenwurff, is in Jeffrey Chipps Smith, Nuremberg: A Renaissance City, 1500-1618, exh. cat., Austin, University of Texas, 1983, pp. 92ff. Incunabula leaf with woodcuts