Hans Lützelburger also known as Hans Franck, was a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 blockcutter ("formschneider") for woodcut

Woodcut

Woodcut—occasionally known as xylography—is a relief printing artistic technique in printmaking in which an image is carved into the surface of a block of wood, with the printing parts remaining level with the surface while the non-printing parts are removed, typically with gouges...

s, regarded as one of the finest of his day. He cut the blocks but as far as is known was not an artist himself. He is best known for his virtuoso work on 41 of the "superbly cut" series of tiny woodcuts of the Dance of Death, designed by Hans Holbein the Younger

Hans Holbein the Younger

Hans Holbein the Younger was a German artist and printmaker who worked in a Northern Renaissance style. He is best known as one of the greatest portraitists of the 16th century. He also produced religious art, satire and Reformation propaganda, and made a significant contribution to the history...

, which Lützelburger left unfinished when he died.

He is known to have been active, and already well-established, in Augsburg from c. 1516, where he was working, and signing the reverse of blocks, under Jost de Negker

Jost de Negker

Jost de Negker was a cutter of woodcuts and also a printer and publisher of prints during the early 16th century, mostly in Augsburg, Germany. He was a leading "formschneider" or blockcutter of his day, but always to the design of an artist. He is "closely tied to the evolution of the fine...

, the other great blockcutter of the period, on the print projects for Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor

Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor

Maximilian I , the son of Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor and Eleanor of Portugal, was King of the Romans from 1486 and Holy Roman Emperor from 1493 until his death, though he was never in fact crowned by the Pope, the journey to Rome always being too risky...

 involving Albrecht Dürer

Albrecht Dürer

Albrecht Dürer was a German painter, printmaker, engraver, mathematician, and theorist from Nuremberg. His prints established his reputation across Europe when he was still in his twenties, and he has been conventionally regarded as the greatest artist of the Northern Renaissance ever since...

, Hans Burgkmair

Hans Burgkmair

Hans Burgkmair the elder was a German painter and printmaker in woodcut.Burgkmair was born in Augsburg, the son of painter Thomas Burgkmair and his son, Hans the Younger, became one too. From 1488 he was a pupil of Martin Schongauer in Colmar, who died during his two years there, before Burgkmair...

 and other artists. In 1522 his "first undoubted masterpiece", the Battle of Naked Men and Peasants by Master NH (possibly Nicholaus Hogenberg), was published, which in at least one edition carried an extra block in the margin below with his name as "FURMSCHNIDER" and the date in a tablet - a very unusual feature. This also includes portraits of Lützelburger and the artist, naked except for cloths covering their genitals, pointing to the tablet.

He was active from about 1522 in Basel

Basel

Basel or Basle In the national languages of Switzerland the city is also known as Bâle , Basilea and Basilea is Switzerland's third most populous city with about 166,000 inhabitants. Located where the Swiss, French and German borders meet, Basel also has suburbs in France and Germany...

 (perhaps after a period in Mainz

Mainz

Mainz under the Holy Roman Empire, and previously was a Roman fort city which commanded the west bank of the Rhine and formed part of the northernmost frontier of the Roman Empire...

), where he died, apparently young - he was perhaps in his thirties or early forties - in 1526. He and Holbein were contracted by the publisher Jakob Faber for more than one series of Bible illustrations (for editions of Martin Luther

Martin Luther

Martin Luther was a German priest, professor of theology and iconic figure of the Protestant Reformation. He strongly disputed the claim that freedom from God's punishment for sin could be purchased with money. He confronted indulgence salesman Johann Tetzel with his Ninety-Five Theses in 1517...

's translation), as well as the Dance of Death. He and Holbein also worked for the major publisher Johann Froben

Johann Froben

Johann Froben, in Latin: Johannes Frobenius , was a famous printer and publisher in Basel...

. He had only completed 41 of the scenes of the Dance of Death at his death. These were issued as prints in the early 1520s, sometimes wrongly called "proofs", and when they were published in book form in 1538, with added verses, the prefactory matter only referred to Lützelburger, it having apparently been forgotten that Holbein was involved. Later editions added other designs cut by others, probably not all by Holbein. The blocks formed part of his estate at his death.

He seems to have produced so much work in his last years at Basel that he may well have had assistants, although there is no documentation for this. He may also have been responsible for cutting the most impressive work of the Basel artist Urs Graf

Urs Graf

Urs Graf was a Swiss Renaissance painter and printmaker , as well as a mercenary soldier. He only produced two etchings, one of which dates from 1513 – the earliest known etching for which a date has been established...

, his series of 16 white-line woodcuts of Standardbearers.

External links

• British Museum
  British Museum
  The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
  
  , Search on Hans Lützelburger here for 81 works.
• Dance of Death
• Dance of Death, including commentary, later images and copies by other artists.