Lienhart Holl had obviously some connections to Ulm also after that he in 1484 had been banished from this city, latest documented is a visit in April 1492. Although P Amelung has put doubt on the old supposition that Holl should have moved from Ulm to Nuremberg, this seems to be just what he did, at least for some time, because the characteristic features of the windhead in the left corner of Cosmographia’s World Map that seemingly is his self-portrait can also be recognized on a young man who frequently acts in the scenes told of in Jacobus de Voragine’s Passional oder Leben der Heiligen, a book printed by Koberger in 1488, illustrated with 262 woodcuts of professional but different standard, many of them probably the work of Holl. Another of the actors in these scenes seems to have the features of Albrecht Dürer the Younger, maybe c. 15-year-old as he was when he in 1486 started his apprenticeship in Michael Wolgemut’s atelier.

Lienhart Holl liked to represent his own likeness, obviously so much that he even seems to have portrayed himself as a man pierced by a sword among several others in the picture Von pin der hell in einer gemain in Johann Zainer’s very richly and probably by more than one hand illustrated Geistliche Auslegung des Lebens Jesu Christi (undated, maybe c. 1482), a woodcut excellently composed and cut with great perfection. That he originally may have been educated as a painter we can see from the preserved portrait of an up to now unidentified young man, which in fact has the character of a self-portrait. This portrait on limewood (61,5 x 38 cm) was once owned by the museum of Lüneburg and is now in the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid. It has long troubled the experts. E Buchner attributes (Das deutsche Bildnis der Spätgotik und der frühen Dürerzeit 1953) with hesitation this Bildnis eines blonden Jünglings to a northwest-deutscher painter c. 1490 and writes among else: In das steile Blickfeld ist die in kühner Diagonale sich aufbauende Halbfigur des schlanken blonden Jünglings mit zwingendem Schluss gefügt …Die von dem dunkelgrauen Gewand sich markant abhebende rechte Hand hält mit anmutig sich fügenden Fingern ein gerolltes Schriftstück, während die linke eine “explicierende" Geste mit zusammengespitzten Daumen und Zeigefinger macht … Der Kontur der kräftigen, ge-höckerten Nase, die an der spitze leich eingekerbt ist, wird durch einen dunklen Schattenzug messerscharf herausgeholt …

It has not been observed earlier that this portrait is signed with the help of symbols. Lienhart Holl did not only like to represent his own likeness, in this portrait he has seen to that also his name should be remembered. On a wall in the upper right corner there is a sculpture of Samson rending the Lion. Below, on a drapery, we se the heart-formed leaves of a plant and twigs with leaves of an elder-tree (German Holunderbusch, Holle, Holler). Holl’s expression is very serious as if it should be the question of a moment of special importance, maybe meant to be understandable from the rolled document he is holding and the gesture of triumph he makes with his left hand. The document has very big letters (like those that are painted on the window behind him) and may in a way refer to his profession, as printer or as painter. Another possibility is of course that it here may be the question of such an early type of passport portrait for the help of travellers for which Jan van Eyck half a century before seems to have created the prototype (See the article Jan van Eyck’s Innovation of Passport Portraits in Oil). On the drapery there is also a representation of a rose, probably symbolizing religious devotion as the rose in the lower right corner of the woodcut Wie der herr getöfft ward that is part of J Zainer’s Geistliche Auslegung des Lebens Jesu Christi. There is also a small fire reminding of the very decorative flames of Hell that are seen among else also in the mentioned woodcut Von pin der hell in einer gemain, maybe something he was known for beside that it so near reminds of his name. Holl is wearing a headgear with Schnürlein of a type that seems to be an exclusivity for persons who are in some way connected with the ´Housebook Master´ Albrecht Dürer the Elder’s circle. The style of the portrait reminds of Netherlandish realistic painting as we see this style practiced in southern Germany by e g Micheal Wolgemut, Hans Burkmair the Elder or Dürer the Elder. As a type of self-portrait there is also a clear likeness to Dürer the Younger’s so masterly painted early self-portraits.

With the help of the characteristics of the painting that most likely is Lienhart Holl’s self-portrait, it may in the future be possible to identify some more preserved portraits by his hand. It seems e g now obvious that his relation to the young Dürer was so near that he at some occasion may have painted an early portrait of his younger colleague. It is a small painting on paper (26,1 x 17,2 cm), very much damaged, that shows Albrecht the Younger quite as childish as he is on several of the woodcuts in Voragine’s Passional oder Leben der Heiligen from 1488, a book that seemingly has illustrations based on earlier sketches. A text added on the small portrait reads in Albrechts own writing im.13.jar.was ich. A painted date on it is not quite clear but seems to be 1484, which probably means that Holl already this year was present in Nuremberg. The portrait comes from a Visierungsbuch owned by Duke Philip II of Pomerania and arrived in the 1920s to Pommersches Landesmuseum in the then German city Stettin. This painting has very mush troubled the interpreters. It was first incorrectly thought to be an early self-portrait, which was disputed e g by the learned specialist E Buchner, who in 1953 instead thought it to be a copy. Now we can conclude that it in fact seems to be the question of an original by Holl.

Among some other portraits in a resembling style is e g the painting of Hieronymus Tschekkenbürlin und der Tod (Öffentliche Kunstsammlung, Basel), about which Buchner in 1953 wrote: “Mitten im Leben sind wir vom Tod umgeben” könnte als Unterschrift under dem Diptychon … stehen, das sich der sechsundzwanzigjährige Basler Licentiat der Rechte Hieronymus Tschekkenbürlin 1487 kurz for seinem Eintritt in den Karthäser-Orden malen liess. In krassem Kontrast stehen sich der blonde, entwaffnend harmlose Jungherr im schmucken, modischen Gewand mit der Rose in der Rechten … und die dräuende Fratze des Todes mit dem grinsenden, zahnlückigen Schädel und der lederartig eingeschnurrten, von Würmern zerfressenen, über das Knochengerüst gespannten Haut gegenüber…Kein grosses Kunstwerk und kein grosser Meister, aber ein Zeitdokument von unerhörter Eindringlichkeit. Buchner ascribes this portrait to a painter in Basel, but it may of course as well have been painted at a time when the portrayed visited Nuremberg, where Holl is likely to have been working at least for some time in the 1480s.

It has long been observed that the illustrations of Des dodes dantz, one in Lübeck in 1489 published Dance of Death book (22 leaves and rather small woodcuts), and the woodcuts of the first part (the Pentateuch) of the remarkable Lübeck Bible, published by Steffen Arndes in the same city on 19 November 1494 (with 152 woodcuts, partly reused), seem to be the work of the same artist, mostly thought to have been a travelling visitor in northern Germany. This during the years very much discussed enigmatic artist has up to now never been identified. E Buchner did, however, in the Lübeck Bible find resemblances with some characteristics of the portrait he calls Bildnis eines blonden Jünglings, now here discussed as a probable self-portrait by Lienhart Holl: Ich denke etwa an die spannungsgeladene Gruppe von Kains Brudermord, wo Adams gelöstes Haar ähnlich aufflackert wie beim Simson, oder den zusammengepackt knienden Pfannenhalter auf der Jugend Mose, der in den geschlossenen Wucht der Bewegung unwillkürlich an den Simson erinnert, oder an den Studenten des Totentanzes, der eine ähnliche Mütze trägt … Eins ist der Bildnistafel und den Holzschnitten gemeinsam: Sie stehen einsam in der sie umgebenden lübischen und hanseatischen Kunst.

That there actually may have existed near connections between the Middle Rhine and Lübeck we see from the fact that Dietrich Arndes, who in 1492 became bishop of Lübeck, probably was a relative of the printer Steffen Arndes. As Canon in Speyer in 1481 Dietrich ought to have known Peter Drach very well, the printer of Der Spiegel menschlicher Behältnis, the famous c. 1474 published illustrated incunabula.

Although there is now consensus that the illustration of the Lübeck Bible is the work of two main artists, it may still be an open question to what degree the second artist has also had to complete parts of the first artist’s seemingly suddenly interrupted work. The style of the first artist has a few resemblances to Erhard Reuwich’s woodcuts in Bernhard of Breydenbach’s Peregrinationes in Terram Sanctam from 1486. This, together with the advanced artistic quality of these illustration, makes it reasonable to consider seriously if it could not be the question of late works by this very little known, however evidently important artist. Reuwich would at this time have been rather old. A probable portrait of him, which I have interpreted that his assistant Wihelm Pleydenwurff painted in 1483 (see the article The Question of Different Hands), shows him seemingly as an already sick man, circumstances of interest because the change of artist may have been a consequence of the first artist’s sickness or death, maybe at a time when parts of the already designed woodstocks were not yet cut.

Since A Koberger had established himself in Nuremberg, this city had become a leading publishing centre, at the now actual time with many specialists working for the planned Schatzbehalter and Weltchronik. When the need for another very experienced artist suddenly became actual in Lübeck, the most natural would have been to contact Koberger, who probably since earlier was well acquainted with the leading printers of Lübeck. At this early time in the history of the woodcut illustrated printed book many of the most experienced German book designers must have been more or less acquainted with each other, at least through published books. We do not know if Lienhart Holl around 1489/90 was still at work for the Koberger firm, for which he seems to have designed at least a part of the woodcuts of the in 1488 published Heiligenleben. As Holl was also an experienced printer and publisher, he must have been a favourite choise as continuator of the work in Lübeck. It seems in fact also to be possible to confirm his presence in Lübeck at the beginning of the 1490s thanks to his inclination to represent himself among his illustrations, as will be discussed further in the following. He may when he travelled to Lübeck have carried with him his here discussed supposed self-portrait and the portrait of his young colleague Albrecht Dürer the Younger, paintings which for some reason seem to have been lost in northern Germany.

In the style of the second main artist of the Lübeck Bible it is possible to recognize at least some of the characteristics of Holl’s hand, and, maybe more interesting, a quality level that we know as his. He may have arrived at Lübeck so early that he can have been able to take part in e g the cutting of some not yet executed illustrations for Des dodes dantz, e g the one of the young student who has a headgear resembling the one that Holl is wearing on his supposed self-portrait. In the first part of the Lübeck Bible this second artist seems to have executed among else the woodcut of the creation, very like the same motif in the Cologne Bible, and maybe by the same artist. It is an interesting fact that Holl is mentioned to have been back again for a while in Ulm already in April 1492, seemingly telling us that the printing of the Lübeck Bible proceeded during a rather long time after that Holl had executed his part of the illustrations. That he took an essential part in the work on another important illustrated incunabula before he left Lübeck seems to be confirmed by the fact that we can rather clearly recognize his face in one of the woodcut illustrations of the in 1492 by Bartholomäus Ghotan in Lübeck published first edition of Revelationes sanctae Birgittae, a commission from the Swedish nunnery in Vadstena.

According to the preserved Diarium Vazstenense, two persons travelled on 27 September 1491 from Sweden to Lübeck in order to arrange the printing of Revelationes, the priest Petrus Ingemari and the lay brother Gerardus. It is in 1487 mentioned that Gerardus could sculpere & depingere (probably meaning engrave and draw), and in 1515, when he died, that he was a good painter. The printer Ghotan had earlier practiced in Sweden during a period and is guessed to have had so near relations to Vadstena that he may have furnished the nunnery with some sort of printing equipment. A painted altarpiece from the church of Appuna near Vadstena (Statens historiska museum, Stockholm) shows in four scenes some essentials of St Bridget’s life and deeds, paintings of high professional quality that since long are thought to have been executed by Gerardus.

Some scholars have meant that these paintings should show so great relationship to the illustrations of Revelationes that Gerardus might have been the designer of the woodcuts. If he really is identical with the painter of the altarpiece from Appuna, we must assume that he has at least delivered suggestions for the illustrations, maybe forwarded to Lübeck by the printer Ghotan at his return from a period he is known to have spent in Sweden 1486-87. The voyage to Lübeck of both a priest and an artist would then have had the double intention of supervising the religious as well as the artistic result before the book was printed. Lienhart Holl, the very advanced expert on the printing of woodcut illustrated books, must have been important for the work, with 14 page-size woodcuts, of which 4 are cut in one stock, e g the very lively one with a monk climbing up on a ladder in order to ask treacherous questions. It is this woodcut that Holl seemingly has signed with a small self-portrait farthest to the right among the followers of the riding St Bridget.

Other woodcuts do not show the same high standard but as a whole this book is one of the masterpieces in the history of woodcut illustrated incunabula. As most illustrated books, also Revelationes sanctae Birgittae is the result of the co-operation of a group of specialists. If Lienhart Holl, as supposed here, has really been the leader of the successful illustration of the Revelationes, his in the previous mentioned supposed self-portrait would have been understandable as a memory of a triumphant point of his career, co-ordinating many specialists to high perfection. This interesting portrait is, however, painted on southern lime-wood and therefore most likely a work from the 1480s. It is an interesting question if the young Albrecht Dürer may have contributed in some way to the outstanding quality of e g the mentioned woodcut that Holl seems to have ´signed´ with his self-portrait, because it may be possible to recognize in the upper right corner also Albrecht’s childish face, in fact also a face somewhat resembling Wilhelm Pleydenwurff’s supposed portrait of Erhard Reuwich in 1483 before this artist’s travel to Palestine.

Maybe it was together that Albrecht and Holl in May 1490 travelled through Germany to Lübeck in order to work with woodcut illustrations in Lübeck, but that Albrecht for sickness (see the self-portrait in pen drawing in Universitätsbibliothek, Erlangen, from c. 1491-92) may have been forced to be little active for some period. On another probably somewhat later executed self-portrait in pen drawing (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) Albrecht makes quite the same gesture of triumph with his left hand as does Holl on the mentioned portrait, which Albrecht seems to have had the possibility to study. Maybe this drawing is executed just when the both artists after the completion of the work on Revelationes sanctae Birgittae, were ready to leave northern Germany.

Albrecht’s so professionally educated hand is, however, not possible to identify with any security among the woodcuts of Revelationes. One may guess that he as a young assistant might have been used especially as the very trained Formschneider, that he surely was since his years in Wolgemut’s atelier. The high artistic standard we see in some of the woodcuts points in fact at a deciding influence from some exceptionally talented artist. Albrecht, on his part, may have studied with interest especially Holl’s supposed self-portrait, which may be the first autonomous painted self-portrait in Western art, not, as thought up to now, Albrecht’s in 1493 improved variant (Louvre, Paris), in which he curiously enough in his left hand holds a symbolic eryngium (sea-holly).

Bartholomäus Ghotan, the printer of Revelationes, is a fascinating person in the history of the printed book, maybe also himself practicing as designer or cutter of illustrations. Mentioned as Vikar at the cathedral of Magdeburg he printed among else in 1480 a splendid Missale Magdeburgense. In 1483 he moved to Lübeck and established himself as printer of religious books in Low German language. From there he was called to Sweden for the printing of Manuele Upsalense and Missale Strengnense, both 1487. He bought a house in Stockholm, where he is present from 1486 to 1487. Probably the last-mentioned year he published Vita Katherine, a book that without success aimed at a canonizing of also St Bridget’s daughter, who had followed her mother as abbess in Vadstena.

In 1488 Ghotan returned to Lübeck and printed among else the richly illustrated Missale Aboense, the very first book intended for use in Finland, showing in a handcoloured woodcut the bishops Henrik and Konrad together with Dean Magnus Stiernkors and two priests, also the printers initials and armorial device. In Lübeck Ghotan was in contact with a Russian delegation looking for skilled German artisans. Accused for treasury against a boy, maybe a son he had although Ghotan is mentioned as clericus Vpsaliensis et Magdeburgensis diocesis, he tried to get Russian help to be relieved from the accusation. It is documented that Ghotan in 1493 visited Åbo in Finland, probably on his way to Russia, invited as it is said by Ivan III. It seems sure that he really arrived in Russia and for some time lived in Novgorod, maybe also in Moscow. Unsure sources report that he was murdered on his way to leave Russia. He was obviously deceased before September 1496, when the house of selighen Bartholomeus Ghutaen was sold in Lübeck.

Although Ghotan printed several beautifully illustrated books, of which some like Revelationes sanctae Birgittae and Missale Aboense are among the very best of this period, the history of art may have offered his artistic ambitions too little interest. We do not know anything at all about his education, it is in fact only his activities during the two last decades of his life that are known. One may guess that he as a mentioned clericus may have had the opportunity to spend some forming years at a religious centre or at some other place where manuscripts or books were illuminated. Looking at Ghotan’s printing device we find in this together with the letters b and g among else also a rose that is astonishingly like the three flowers on one of the shields of the bookplate of the families von Rohrbach and von Holzhausen. This bookplate is with good reasons thought to have been engraved by a never identified although interesting artist, who is known for his copies after Martin Schongauer and especially after the now at last identified ´Master of the Housebook´ Albrecht Dürer the Elder, signing his works with the initials b and g, divided from each other by an x resembling that in Martin Schongauer’s signature.

A very interesting part of his engravings is a series of studies of playing small children, seemingly all copied after Albrecht Dürer the Elder, by whos own hand three drypoints have been preserved in Rijksprentenkabinet in Amsterdam, probably part of works sold by Dürer the Younger during his stay in the Netherlands in the 1420s. These studies of two about two-year-old boys are executed as carefully as if it should be the question of real portraits. Looking closer at them it seems in fact to be possible to recognize the features of Albrecht Dürer the Younger, born in 1471, and Willibald Pirckheimer, born in 1470, two children that were raised in adjoining homes in Nuremberg and then all their lives stayed in very very near friendship. If this observation should be correct, Dürer the Elder’s originals have to be dated c. 1472-73 and the copying engraver’s works not long thereafter, meaning a few years after that Dürer the Elder had left the Holper goldsmith atelier in Nuremberg, where he seems to have been replaced by Israhel van Meckenem the Younger (See the article The Question of Different Hands). Maybe the engraver with the initials b and g was a travelling artist who in the first half of the 1470s spent a period in the Holper atelier. If normally playing with each other as children, the long friendship between Dürer the Younger and the Nuremberg patricier and learned humanist Pirckheimer gets a deeper dimension, making it e g rather probable that the young Albrecht may have had the favour of getting an extremely careful first education by private teachers in the home of the powerful Pirckheimer family, which would explain the high standard of his education.

To the here presented vague theory that the engraver, who at the beginning of the 1470s, probably in Nuremberg, monographed his works bxg, possibly could be the same person as the very art-interested printer Bartholomäus Ghotan, known in Magdeburg, Lübeck and Russia in the 1480s and 1490s, ought to be added, that M Geisberg, the author of Geschichte der deutschen Graphik vor Dürer 1939, as an identity for bxg with some likelihood has suggested a very little known goldsmith Bartholomeus Gobel active in Frankfurt am Main in the 1490s, because the Rohrback-Holzhausen bookplate is localized to Frankfurt am Main and the style of the engraver bxg points at the possibility that he may have been a goldsmith. Maybe Ghotan did survive in Russia and chose a new identity at his return?

Copyright © 2001-2007 Knut Andersson. All rights reserved.