River Landscape with Five Bare Spruce Trees in the Foreground Germany, 16th century

River Landscape with Five Bare Spruce Trees in the Foreground

1549

Augustin Hirschvogel

(German, 1503–1553)

Germany, 16th century

etching

Platemark: 14.5 x 17.3 cm (5 11/16 x 6 13/16 in.); Sheet: 14.9 x 17.7 cm (5 7/8 x 6 15/16 in.)

John L. Severance Fund 1951.491

Catalogue raisonné: Hollstein XIIIA .167.34

Location: not on view

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Did You Know?

An early adopter of etching, Augustin Hirschvogel was among the first artists in Germany to use a copper, rather than iron, etching plate.

Description

Within a decade, Augustin Hirschvogel and Hanns Lautensack were aware of the landscapes by Wolfgang Huber and Albrecht Altdorfer and began to expand their artistic vocabulary. Hirschvogel probably made this group of etchings after traveling down the Danube from Nuremberg, through Regensburg and Passau, to his residence in Vienna. The many buildings, cultivated fields, and roads emphasize human activity and its mark on the landscape but always in the service of articulating a particular topography. Hirschvogel’s etchings found an international audience, informing the development of the landscape genre as far away as Italy and the Netherlands.