MECKENEM, Israhel van the Younger

In this print the main story is the beheading of St John the Baptist and the presentation of the severed head by Salome to Herod. However, both episodes have been reduced and removed to distant back chambers of the main event. The dance of Salome and the merry group of patricians who perform a sedate dance are placed in the foreground.

The Mass of St Gregory was a favourite theme of Meckenem. It is one of his most ambitious religious prints. A late legend tells how the saint, finding a disbeliever among his congregation, prayed for a sign and was rewarded by the appearance above the altar of the crucified Christ and the instruments of the Passion.

Morris dances, performed at carnivals or as interludes in more formal dances in the fifteenth century, were acrobatic as the men would leap around in comical and often erotic fashion to the sound of drum and flute music. As observed in the engraving by Israhel van Meckenem, the men, including a fool, cavort as they try to impress the woman who will bestow a ring on the winner.

Israel van Meckenem learned his trade in the shop of his father, who was a goldsmith and engraver, and his first efforts were-quite naturally copies of his father’s prints. His apprenticeship completed, he joined the shop of the Master E.S., an artist whom we know only through his monogram, but who was one of the finest and most successful engravers of his time. When the latter died, Van Meckenem acquired a good many of his plates, pulled impressions from them, and sold the prints. One must realize that these early craftsmen made their livelihood from the creation, the printing, and the sale of their engravings. They often copied favourite works by other artists-prints by Schongauer, the young D�rer, and others. Thus, the success of many prints derived from their popularity as models for other artists and workshops.

Israel van Meckenem copied many of the best works of his day. There must have been a fair amount of larceny in him (one might detect it in his face), for he added the marks and signatures of the original artists to his copies, having no ethical or legal right to do so. No other fifteenth-century engraver produced as many plates as he, and 624 are known to us today.

The print illustrated has great significance in the history of graphic art, for it is the first self portrait of an early engraver that has survived. He represented himself here with his wife, who in all likelihood helped him run his business - and it was a business for this enterprising couple. They sold prints from their own studio, as well as those of other artists. We know that the editions were large, since over a hundred impressions of certain subjects, done some 475 years ago, have survived the ravages of time and now belong to various collections.

This double portrait is the earliest known example of a self-portrait in the graphic arts, but its basic composition has precedents in paintings of South Germany.

The hazy, heavy-lidded eyes, the large nose, and the drooping lower lip are executed with a sharpness of line that lends the artist’s face a metallic cast, and the eyes and mouth of his wife characterize her as a shrewd and contented citizen.

Students of architecture, of the history of costume, and of interior decoration are all indebted to Van Meckenem for the record he left us in such works as the one illustrated here. It is one of a series of twelve depicting the interiors of homes - not the castles or palaces of kings and potentates, but the houses of fairly affluent citizens. The latter are shown in various pursuits, playing the organ, lute, and harp, or preparing for bed. Thus we see the different rooms of a residence, with many of the furnishings carefully and faithfully delineated. In this engraving we may study the architecture of the room, the decorative chandelier, and a table and chair of the period. (Some prints in the series show more appurtenances than this rather sparsely furnished room.) Great care was taken with the details of costume and of musical instruments, and thus they provide excellent models for the present-day copyist. Indeed, the majority of Van Meckenem’s engravings were sold to other artists as a kind of dictionary from which they might lift details; it is more than likely that our practical businessman created this series with such a use in mind. We may note here the crispness of the fine parallel lines, some crosshatching in the dark areas, and delicate flicks that model the countenances and garments - the work of a good, if uninspired, engraver. There is also a suggestion of portraiture in the expressions of the musicians, and it is quite possible that the furnishings were not the artist’s only models.

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The type of the Man of Sorrows, standing before the Cross with his arms folded on his breast, was a resounding success in Late medieval art, due to the transfer of the mosaic icon from Constantinople o Rome around 1380, where it found a new home in the church of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme. In the fifteenth century, when the Carthusians of Santa Croce decided to publicise their church in order to attract more pilgrims, they made this precious icon the centrepiece of their campaign. The Carthusians approached Israel van Meckenem, the best known printmaker of the day, to make an engraving of the icon, together with a smaller version (Biblioth�que Nationale, Paris) for those of more modest means.

The inscription below the print reads: “This image was made after the model and likeness of the well known first image of the Pietà, which is preserved in the Church of the Holy Cross in the city of Rome, which the holy pope Gregory the Great ordered to be painted according to a vision that ha had had and that had been shown to him from above.”

Interest in the secular and the commonplace reaches programmatic proportions in Meckenem’s works. Sometime between 1495 and 1500 he executed a series of “Twelve Scenes of Daily Life” where couples, pursuing everyday activities, illustrate some aspect of the social world they represent. Six of these are placed in detailed domestic interiors with a wealth of detail of household furnishings displayed. The Visit to the Spinner is a good example.