MINOR WORKS 
and to fulfil the national ideal. And perhaps, as 
Dr. Seeger suggests, Peter Vischer the younger 
looked to Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony, 
as the heaven-appointed Kaiser—that Prince 
whose portrait he executed in so loving and 
masterly a fashion two years later. 
That love of allegory which is indicated by this 
drawing, and by the artist's addiction to poetry, 
was a taste he shared with Diirer and Holbein 
the younger. It is further illustrated by the two 
inkstands which come from his hand and, in a 
less degree, by the two plaquettes of Orpheus 
and Eurydice we have now to consider. (Ill. 19 
and 20.) 
T'here are, indeed, four plaquettes on this sub- 
ject in existence, all undoubtedly by the same 
master. . But three of these are practically iden- 
tical. The other, the earliest as it would appear, 
is in the possession of M. Dreyfus of Paris. It was 
at one time attributed to Jacopo de’ Barbari. But 
this, like the other plaquettes, bears Vischer’s mark 
clearly enough—two fish lying back to back pierced 
through by a nail or dagger, a device found also 
on the two inkstands. The two nude figures of 
Orpheus and Eurydice do, however, undoubtedly 
owe very much to the influence of Jacopo and 
Sansovino on the one hand, just as they are related 
to the Adame and Eve of Diirer on the other. In 
this earlier:version of the subject it is evident that 
the artist has been moved by the above-mentioned 
influences to study the nude, but his study is not 
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