JOST AMMAN
1539-1591
114 An Officer of the Rank of
Oberster Feldprofoss in the
Imperial Army
Pen and black ink, paper toned with black chalk; H: 37.8
cm (i4I5/io in.); W: 24. i cm (9'Ain.)
89.GA.i5
MARKS AND INSCRIPTIONS: At bottom, signed and
dated IA 1556 with drawing-pen insignia in black ink.
PROVENANCE: Hans Schneider, The Hague; Tobias
Christ, Basel (sale, Sotheby's, London, April 9, 1981, lot
12); private collection (sale, Sotheby's, New York, Jan-
uary 13, 1988, lot 63); art market, Boston.
EXHIBITIONS: None.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: K. Pilz, "DieZeichnungenunddasgra-
phische Werk des Jost Amman (1539-1591)," Anzeiger
jur schweizerische Altertumskunde, n. s. 35 (1933), p. 39;
idem, "Jost Amman 1539-1591," Mitteilungen des Vereins
Jür Geschichte der Stadt Nürnberg 37 (1940), pp. 205; 245,
n. 4; J. C. Smith, Nuremberg: A Renaissance City 1500-
1618, exh. cat. (Archer M. Huntington Art Gallery, Uni-
versity of Texas at Austin, 1983), p. 275, n. 5; I. O'Dell-
Franke, "Federkunststücke von und nach Jost Amman:
Zeichnungen und ihre druckgraphischen Vorlagen,"
Kunst und Antiquitdten 6 (1986), pp. 20; 25, n. 2.AMMAN MADE THIS, HIS EARLIEST KNOWN DRAWING,
when he was seventeen years old. Copied after a near-
contemporary engraving by Virgil Solis,^1 it conforms, as
was pointed out by O'Dell-Franke (1986, p. 20), to the
then-common practice of young artists learning to draw
by copying prints. Amman himself was to produce a
book of woodcuts intended for such purposes, Kunst und
Lehrbüchlein (1578).^2 At the same time, as a Federkunst-
stück, a drawing whose line work imitates that of en-
graving, this drawing was made as a display of virtuosity
and as such transcends its model. Its far larger scale than
the print, which measures n by 8. 2 centimeters, and its
elimination of background landscape monumentalize
the form. The cross-hatching in the engraved figure was
replaced in the drawing with dramatic passages of fine
vertical hatching alternating with thick, incisive black
outlines. This change calls attention to the line work's in-
trinsic beauty and imbues it with a vitality lacking in the
engraving. Amman further enhanced this liveliness and
surface sensuousness by preparing the paper with an
arching dusting of black chalk.1. I. O'Dell-Franke, Kupferstiche und Radierungen aus der Werk-
stattdes Virgil Solis (Wiesbaden, 1977), no. fió.- A. Andresen, Der deutsche Peintre-Graveur oder die deutschen
Malerals Kupferstecher (Leipzig, 1864), vol. i, no. 237.
264 CENTRAL EUROPEAN SCHOOL • AMMAN