Book-Plate of Scheurl and Tucher
c. 1510
Medium
Woodcut in black hand colored with brush and watercolor on cream laid paper, laid down on tan laid paper
Dimensions
Image: 16.5 × 12.7 cm (6 1/2 × 5 in.); Sheet: 18.8 × 13.9 cm (7 7/16 × 5 1/2 in.); Mounting sheet: 19.4 × 14.6 cm (7 11/16 × 5 3/4 in.)
Classification
book plate
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
88902
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
Christoph Scheurl, a University of Wittenberg professor, owned two bookplates with his parents’ arms and the same motto, including this one on which Lucas Cranach’s shield-bearer is fashionably clothed and colored. The earliest book to contain this ex libris is a classical text printed by Wolfgang Stöckel in 1511, suggesting the woodcut dates to around 1510, before Scheurl moved back to Nuremberg. The Chicago impression is tattered around the edges, has sustained fading and loss of printed pigme...
About the Artist
Lucas Cranach the Elder · 1472–1553
Lucas Cranach the Elder (c. 1472-1553) was one of the most prominent German Renaissance painters and a key artistic figure of the Protestant Reformation. Born in Kronach, Franconia, to the painter Hans Maler, Cranach began his career in Vienna around 1502, where he became one of the founders of the Danube School, a movement characterized by expressive landscape painting and emotional force. His ea...