CHAPTER IX 
THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF VISCHER 
1 HE Rathaus Railing was the last and greatest 
of the works produced bythe combined efforts 
of the Vischer family. It is vain to attempt to 
apportion the share of father and sons in it. That 
each had his share in it we may easily deduce 
from the history of it given above, and the result 
was a very perfect whole, the most complete and 
beautiful achievement of German craftsmen labour- 
ing under the overwhelming influence of neo- 
paganism in art. 
It would be tedious and unprofitable to enu- 
merate here the manifold works, great and small, 
which have been in times past attributed to the 
old Master by uncritical generations of credulous 
collectors. Almost every piece of sixteenth or 
seventeenth century bronze work in Germany has 
been at one time or another called a masterpiece 
by Peter Vischer. But one characteristic piece 
undoubtedly by him is the “ Boy with Bagpipes” 
(Knabe mat Dudelsack), now in the Germanic 
Museum at Nuremberg. (Ill. 26.) It is a charm- 
ing little work, completely in the manner of the 
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