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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