PREFACE 
no doubt to the greed of the few, the tendency 
was to attribute to this one famous craftsman the 
works of many. At one time almost any work of 
art in bronze to be found throughout the length 
and breadth of Germany was attributed to Peter 
Vischer, just as a Talleyrand or a Sydney Smith 
has had witticisms of every date and every quality 
fathered upon him. 
From unreasoning praise, again, men passed to 
equally undiscriminating disparagement. Heideloff 
arose and wished the world to see in Peter Vischer 
nothing but the mere craftsman who put into 
bronze the designs and models of Adam Krafft 
or another. The admirable labours of Retberg, 
however, and of Dr. Liibke have shown how little 
foundation there is for this view, and, more re- 
cently, by the application of the principles of more 
exact art-criticism, Dr. Seeger, in his minute and 
loving study of Peter Vischer the younger, has 
vindicated the claim of the great craftsman’s son 
to rank with, or even above, his father as the first 
and greatest exponent of Renaissance plastic-work 
in Germany. 
To the two latter authors I have been con- 
tinually and especially indebted whilst writing the 
present monograph. For the use of very many of 
the illustrations forming the volume to which Dr. 
Liibke contributed the text, my best thanks and 
acknowledgements are due to the publisher, Herr 
Stein, of Nuremberg. 
C. H. 
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