Artworks
Stephan Fridolin, Der Schatzbehalter der wahren Reichtümer des Heils, printed book on paper, woodcuts by Micheal Wolgemut and Wilhelm Pleydenwurff with contemporary colouring. Printed in Nurember by Anton Koberger, 8 November 1491.
The Schatzbehalter (The Treasury of the True Riches of Salvation) was written by the Nuremberg Franciscan preacher Stephan Fridolin (1430-1498) almost certainly on the request of the local Sisters of the Order of St. Clare and their abbess, Caritas Pirckheimer, sister to Willibald Pirckheimer (a close friend of Albrecht Dürer). The devotional and edifying text is mainly concerned with the contemplation of the Life of Christ and his suffering.
The most important of the book’s three parts is the second with its nearly one hundred gegenwürff (contemplations) and corresponding woodcuts. These were designed to assist in the better understanding of the text and served as a mnemonic aid. In his discussion of each woodcut, Fridolin explicates the literal and metaphysical meaning of the provided image, thus giving the modern reader invaluable insight into medieval interpretations of such imagery.
The ninety-six full-page, numbered woodcuts form the first monumental series of book illustration. The illustrations originate in the workshop of Michael Wolgemut (1437-1519) and his stepson Wilhelm Pleydenwurff (d. 1494), who were painters and woodcutters. The attribution of the cuts to one or the other artist remains complicated because Pleydenwurff was also involved when Wolgemut’s designs were transferred onto the block. As the execution was partly done by assistants, one of them could have been the young Albrecht Dürer, the printer’s godson. He had been apprenticed to Wolgemut’s shop from 1486-89 and then left at Easter in 1490 for his journeyman’s itinerary. Considering the cost of such ambitious projects, Dürer probably worked on both of Koberger’s large commissions at Wolgemut’s workshop – the Schatzbehalter and the Nuremberg Chronicle of 1493. The powerful woodcuts of these historic editions seem to have had a significant impact on Dürer and probably influenced his own monumental work in the medium.
The illustrations showcase a new, quite painterly style. Their hatching produces chiaroscuro effects, graphic quality, plasticity, and depth, making the graphic woodcuts dynamic even without colour, and thus also raising the Schatzbehalter to the status of a landmark in book illustration. In the era it was made however, many patrons still preferred their books coloured, and the present copy is a fine example of this. Luckily, the present copy’s artists applied transparent colour wash, lest they obscure the elaborate woodcuts.
