Hans Springinklee 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...

 artist from Nuremberg

Nuremberg

Nuremberg[p] is a city in the German state of Bavaria, in the administrative region of Middle Franconia. Situated on the Pegnitz river and the Rhine–Main–Danube Canal, it is located about north of Munich and is Franconia's largest city. The population is 505,664...

, best known for his 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. He was a pupil

Pupil

The pupil is a hole located in the center of the iris of the eye that allows light to enter the retina. It appears black because most of the light entering the pupil is absorbed by the tissues inside the eye. In humans the pupil is round, but other species, such as some cats, have slit pupils. In...

 of 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...

.

Life

Little written evidence remains of Springinklee's life, and neither his exact dates of birth or death are known. He was born in Nuremberg between 1490 to 1495, was alive in 1524, and died no later than 1540. In 1547, Johann Neudörffer the Elder wrote that Springinklee had lived with, and learned his craft from, Albrecht Dürer. His first woodcuts date from 1512-1513, but there is no evidence of his presence in Nuremberg after 1524, and it is presumed that he had left Nuremberg by that date. The first documentary evidence dates to 1520, when the council of Nuremberg commissioned him to decorate rooms in Nuremberg Castle

Nuremberg Castle

Nuremberg Castle is a historical building on a sandstone rock in the north of the historical city of Nuremberg, Bavaria, Germany. It comprises three sections: the imperial castle , some buildings of the Burgraves of Nuremberg , and the municipal buildings of the Imperial City at the eastern site...

 before a visit of the Holy Roman Emperor

Holy Roman Emperor

The Holy Roman Emperor is a term used by historians to denote a medieval ruler who, as German King, had also received the title of "Emperor of the Romans" from the Pope...

 Charles V

Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor

Charles V was ruler of the Holy Roman Empire from 1519 and, as Charles I, of the Spanish Empire from 1516 until his voluntary retirement and abdication in favor of his younger brother Ferdinand I and his son Philip II in 1556.As...

. On 10 September 1527, his two daughters mentioned that he had left them in Nuremberg three years before, and his father, Jörg Springinklee, had been paying for their maintenance. His name is absent from church records, but the astronomer Johan Gabriel Doppelmayr

Johan Gabriel Doppelmayr

Johann Gabriel Doppelmayr was a German mathematician, astronomer, cartographer, and wrote about sundials....

 said in 1730 that Springinklee had lived in Nuremberg until 1540.

Works

As a pupil of Dürer, Springinklee was involved in creating a number of works commissioned by Emperor Maximilian I

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...

, including the monumental 192-panel woodcut the Triumphal Arch

Triumphal Arch (woodcut)

The Triumphal Arch is a 16th-century monumental woodcut print, commissioned by the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I. The composite image was printed from 192 separate wood blocks...

. The first prints with his monogram

Monogram

A monogram is a motif made by overlapping or combining two or more letters or other graphemes to form one symbol. Monograms are often made by combining the initials of an individual or a company, used as recognizable symbols or logos. A series of uncombined initials is properly referred to as a...

, HSK, date to 1513: Das Wunder der Heilige Wilgeffortis (The Miracle of Saint Wilgefortis), and a sheet from Maximilian's Weißkunig entitled Kaiser Maximilian ehret das Andenken der Vorväter (Emperor Maxamilian honouring the memory of his ancestors).

From 1516, Springinklee mainly produced illustrations for the bible

Bible

The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...

s published by Anton Koberger

Anton Koberger

Anton Koberger was the German goldsmith, printer and publisher who printed and published the Nuremberg Chronicle, a landmark of incunabula, and was a successful bookseller of works from other printers...

, mostly of Old Testament

Old Testament

The Old Testament, of which Christians hold different views, is a Christian term for the religious writings of ancient Israel held sacred and inspired by Christians which overlaps with the 24-book canon of the Masoretic Text of Judaism...

 scenes. He also created over 100 woodcuts for several editions of the prayerbook Hortulus animae.

Springinklee's paintings are less well known. Some church paintings and altarpiece

Altarpiece

An altarpiece is a picture or relief representing a religious subject and suspended in a frame behind the altar of a church. The altarpiece is often made up of two or more separate panels created using a technique known as panel painting. It is then called a diptych, triptych or polyptych for two,...

s in the vicinity of Nuremberg have been attributed to Springinklee. The Kunstmuseum Basel holds a chiaroscuro drawing of a standing Man of Sorrows

Man of Sorrows

Among the passages in the Hebrew Bible that have been identified by Christians as prefigurations of the Messiah, the Man of Sorrows of Isaiah 53 is paramount - the various theological traditions are discussed at that article...

from 1514, in white on a dark brown ground. Nuremberg Castle contains some fresco

Fresco

Fresco is any of several related mural painting types, executed on plaster on walls or ceilings. The word fresco comes from the Greek word affresca which derives from the Latin word for "fresh". Frescoes first developed in the ancient world and continued to be popular through the Renaissance...

es by Springinklee.