Israhel van Meckenem
Encyclopedia
Germans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
printmaker and goldsmith
Goldsmith
A goldsmith is a metalworker who specializes in working with gold and other precious metals. Since ancient times the techniques of a goldsmith have evolved very little in order to produce items of jewelry of quality standards. In modern times actual goldsmiths are rare...
.
He was the most prolific engraver of the fifteenth century and an important figure in the early history of old master print
Old master print
An old master print is a work of art produced by a printing process within the Western tradition . A date of about 1830 is usually taken as marking the end of the period whose prints are covered by this term. The main techniques concerned are woodcut, engraving and etching, although there are...
s. He was active from 1465 until his death.
Life
His birth date is merely an estimate. Recent guesses range from the early 1430s to 1450. His father arrived in Bocholt, GermanyBocholt, Germany
Bocholt is a city in the north-west of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, part of the district Borken. It is situated 4 km south of the border with the Netherlands.-Geography:...
, near the border with the Netherlands, in 1457, so his place of birth is unknown. He was the son of Israhel van Meckenem the Elder, also a goldsmith, who settled in Bocholt. Attempts have been made to identify the father as the Master of the Berlin Passion, an early engraver, but this remains uncertain. Some writers also assign to the father works traditionally given to the son. The very unusual name "Israhel" suggests the family may have had Jewish origins, but Israhel the Younger was buried in a church, and it might not have been possible for Jews to work as goldsmiths. The "van" suggests a Dutch
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
origin for the family; various places in Germany and the Netherlands have been suggested as "Meckenem", as no place generally called exactly that existed at the time. The Master of the Berlin Passion probably worked mainly in the Netherlands, so his identification with Israhel Senior would have implications for the issue of the family origin.
Israhel van Meckenem probably trained initially as a goldsmith and engraver with his father, before travelling to work with Master E. S.
Master E. S.
Master E. S. , is an unidentified German engraver, goldsmith, and printmaker of the late Gothic period. He was the first major German artist of old master prints and was greatly copied and imitated. The name assigned to him by art historians, Master E. S., is derived from the monogram, E...
, the leading Northern European engraver of the day. His earliest dated print comes from 1465, and indicates that he created it in Cleves
Kleve
Kleve , is a town in the Lower Rhine region of northwestern Germany near the Dutch border and the River Rhine. From the 11th century onwards, Kleve was capital of a county and later a duchy...
, where the family had moved. In 1470 he is documented as working in Bamberg
Bamberg
Bamberg is a city in Bavaria, Germany. It is located in Upper Franconia on the river Regnitz, close to its confluence with the river Main. Bamberg is one of the few cities in Germany that was not destroyed by World War II bombings because of a nearby Artillery Factory that prevented planes from...
; he returned to Bocholt by about 1480, where he remained for the rest of his life.
He continued to work at goldsmithing. Some surviving pieces are widely accepted as his and many commissions from the Bocholt council are documented between 1480 and 1498. He was evidently a prosperous and established figure in the town. One of his prints is a double portrait of himself and his wife, Ida, whom he married in the late 1480s; another print is believed by some to show his father. He is documented in various lawsuits against neighbours, and Ida was fined for "unseemly speech" as well as for "mocking and scolding public officials".
Work
He probably trained with Master E. S.Master E. S.
Master E. S. , is an unidentified German engraver, goldsmith, and printmaker of the late Gothic period. He was the first major German artist of old master prints and was greatly copied and imitated. The name assigned to him by art historians, Master E. S., is derived from the monogram, E...
in South Germany, and may well have been with him at his death c. 1467, since he acquired and reworked forty-one of the master's plates. Another two hundred of van Meckenem's "own" prints also were copies of ones by Master E. S. In total, he produced over six hundred plates, most of which were copies of other prints; they represent about 20% of print production by all Northern European artists in the period of his working life. His career lasted long enough for him to copy Dürer prints.
Apart from the above, he copied prints by the Housebook Master, including some now otherwise lost, Martin Schongauer
Martin Schongauer
Martin Schongauer was a German engraver and painter. He was the most important German printmaker before Albrecht Dürer....
, and many other German engravers. His famous and very fine late series on the Life of the Virgin
Life of the Virgin
The Life of the Virgin, showing narrative scenes from the life of Mary, the mother of Jesus, is a common subject for pictorial cycles in Christian art, often complementing, or forming part of, a cycle on the Life of Christ. In both cases the number of scenes shown varies greatly with the space...
appears to have been based on drawing
Drawing
Drawing is a form of visual art that makes use of any number of drawing instruments to mark a two-dimensional medium. Common instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, inked brushes, wax color pencils, crayons, charcoal, chalk, pastels, markers, styluses, and various metals .An artist who...
s by Hans Holbein the Elder
Hans Holbein the Elder
Hans Holbein was a German painter.He was born in Augsburg, Bavaria and died in Isenheim, Alsace. He and his brother Sigismund Holbein painted religious works in the late Gothic style...
or his workshop, and he may have entered into a regular commercial relationship with Holbein.
His early works were fairly crude, but in the 1480s he developed an effective personal style and made increasingly large and finished works. His own compositions are often very lively, and take a great interest in the secular life of his day. One famous print, supposed to illustrate the story of St John the Baptist and Salome
Salome
Salome , the Daughter of Herodias , is known from the New Testament...
, pushes the specific incidents of the story far in the background to allow space for a scene of court dancers, dressed in the height of contemporary fashion, which takes up most of the plate.
He was sophisticated in self-presentation, signing later prints with his name and town, and producing the first self-portrait print of himself and his wife, which was also the first portrait print of an identifiable person. Some plates seem to have been reworked more than once by his workshop, or produced in more than one version, and many impressions have survived, so his ability to distribute and sell his prints was evidently equally well developed. He was apparently the first to issue engraved (as opposed to 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...
) indulgence
Indulgence
In Catholic theology, an indulgence is the full or partial remission of temporal punishment due for sins which have already been forgiven. The indulgence is granted by the Catholic Church after the sinner has confessed and received absolution...
s, apparently "bootlegged version[s] ... never subject to papal review"; one print promises 20,000 years reduction of time in Purgatory
Purgatory
Purgatory is the condition or process of purification or temporary punishment in which, it is believed, the souls of those who die in a state of grace are made ready for Heaven...
per set of prayers, increased in a second state
State (printmaking)
A state, in printmaking, is a different form of a print, caused by a deliberate and permanent change to a matrix such as a copper plate or woodblock ....
to 45,000 years.