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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