Date: Fri 02-Jul-1999

Publication: Ant

Author: JUDIR

Quick Words:

Medieval-Housebook

Full Text:

The Medieval House Book

(with 3 cuts)

NEW YORK CITY -- On tour in the United Sates for the first -- and perhaps only

-- time is the Medieval Housebook , a legendary work of the late Fifteenth

Century, in an exhibition that asks compelling new questions about the

identity of the artist(s) who produced it.

Since the Nineteenth Century, the authorship of the famed illustrations has

been the subject of continuing and often contentious debate inspiring an

uninterrupted flow of scholarly articles and publications all addressing the

Housebook Master problem (Hausbuchmeister-problem or Hausbuchmeisterfrage).

Organized exclusively for the Frick Collection by Timothy B. Husband, curator

of Medieval Art at the Cloisters, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, "The

Medieval Housebook: A View of Fifteenth-Century Life" presents approximately

30 pages of the codex alongside drypoint prints, many never seen in this

country, by the Master of the Amsterdam Cabinet, the artist believed to be

responsible for several of the illustrated pages in the Housebook , and

arguably the finest graphic artist prior to Albrecht Durer.

Manuscripts related to the Housebook , prints by other contemporary masters,

and several examples of stained glass will also be shown in this special

presentation which features, in total, over 80 drawings and objects borrowed

from various owners, private and public.

Of the five venues participating in the international tour of the Medieval

Housebook , the Frick Collection is the sole institution to present the codex

with this particular investigation as its theme.

In fact, the very tour of the Medieval Housebook is somewhat of a remarkable

event. Since the Seventeenth Century, the work has belonged to a private noble

family in southwestern Germany, the Counts of Waldburg Wolfegg, where it has

remained for over 300 years, never before being made available for public

viewing -- despite the lively interest in its pages.

The unique opportunity to borrow and present the Medieval Housebook now exists

because the manuscript has been temporarily unbound for the creation of a

facsimile reproduction. In a manner previously impossible, individual pages

and drawings of the manuscript can be displayed separately for close

examination.

Following the exhibition at the Frick Collection, the book will be permanently

rebound and returned to the Wolfegg family in Germany.

Famed for its full-page pen and ink illustrations, some enhanced with color,

the Medieval Housebook is a compendium of secular texts that provides a

remarkable view of life in a princely court at the end of the Middle Ages. It

was produced in the region of the Middle Rhine of Germany over an uncertain

period of time between 1475 and 1490.

The manuscript has been known as the Medieval Housebook ("das mittelalterliche

Hausbuch") ever since Ralf von Retburg, a cultural historian and the first

scholar to systematically study the manuscript, referred to it as such in

1865. It is not a Housebook in the sense of a household manual and almanac of

the late Middle Ages; rather it is something of a compilation of texts and

images, often seemingly unrelated, the preponderance of which is largely

concerned with the mechanics of warfare.

But it also addresses medicinal treatments, household recipes, animal

husbandry, mining and metallurgy, minting, castle defense, and pyrotechnics.

Among the most vivid of the full-page illustrations are those depicting the

personifications of planets and those born under their signs, a Garden of

Love, a bath house, and tournament scenes.

As with many such manuals, the Medieval Housebook reflects the knowledge of

numerous texts, but is modeled specifically on none.

The Wolfegg Medieval Housebook presently comprises nine gatherings, each with

four vellum sheets folded in two, making eight folia (recto and verso) or 16

pages each, totaling 63 folia or 126 pages. The gatherings are attached by an

arrangement of leather strips, tied and sewn, to a soft leather wrapper dating

from the Seventeenth Century.

The want of a proper binding suggests that the manuscript was not intended for

a larger library, but served as a reference that could have been added to and

updated. The treatise in the first gathering is in Latin; the rest of the

texts are, for the most part, in a German, sprinkled with Hebrew, Latin and

Italian, that suggests an origin in that country's southern region.

Guest curator Timothy Husband notes in the booklet that accompanies the

exhibition at the Frick Collection, "it was not unusual in the late Middle

Ages for manuscripts to be produced by collaborative effort, and the Housebook

appears to be no exception. A number of stylistic observations can heighten

our appreciation of the artistic achievement of the Housebook as well as

inform us of how this exceptional manuscript was created."

Husband suggests that "the illustrations were the cumulative product of no

less than three or four artists... It seems that the workshop... had been

commissioned primarily to create a number of compelling images or groups of

images that stood independently, unimpeded by even text - an extraordinary

concept for a manuscript. Clearly stylistic homogeneity was of secondary

interest, and one might add that what might appear disturbingly inconsistent

to the modern eye was less jarring to the medieval.

From that point of view, the exercise of identifying hands is devalued;

nonetheless, the process of isolating two principal hands in the Medieval

Housebook , who remain frustratingly anonymous - the Master of the Amsterdam

Cabinet and the Master of the Genre and Tournament Scenes - does shed light

both on the production of the manuscript and on the late-Fifteenth Century

workshop practices."

Works by the Master of the Amsterdam Cabinet and the Housebook Master have

also made their way into other collections, and this exhibition includes

additional examples on loan from the Art Institute of Chicago, the Cleveland

Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the Museum of Fine

Arts, Boston, and the National Gallery of Art, Washington.

The first extensive use of drypoint, a print-making technique, is seen in

works that have been attributed to the Master of the Amsterdam Cabinet. A

drypoint is created by cutting or scratching, using a variety of pointed

styli, into the surface of a soft metal plate, probably a copper and tin or

lead alloy. The needle leaves a curled metal residue or "burr" along the cut

line when the plate is inked and printed on paper. The resulting impression of

these lines yields a silvery, finely modulated, velvety texture.

Because of the softness of the metal, the fine burr and subtle lines are

quickly obliterated by the repeated pressure of the printing press; therefore

the drypoint plate, unlike an engraved plate, is restricted to a relatively

small format and produces only a few quality impressions.

As such, it is a medium suited for a small production, not a mass market. Most

of the drypoints associated with the artist(s) have survived in only one

impression.

The Frick Collection features masterpieces of Western art from the early

Renaissance through the late Nineteenth Century. Important works by Bellini,

El Greco, Rembrandt, Titian, Turner, Vermeer, Whistler and many others are

housed in one of the great mansions remaining from the Gilded Age.

The Collection is at 1 East 70th Street, once the residence of Henry Clay

Frick (1849-1919). Designed by Thomas Hastings of Carrere and Hastings and

constructed in 1913-1914, the building was changed after Mrs Frick's death in

1931, with alterations and additions made by the architect John Russell Pope.

In 1935 the collection opened to the public.

Hours are 10 am to 6 pm Tuesdays through Saturdays, and from 1 to 6 pm

Sundays. Closed Mondays. Children under ten are not admitted to the

collection. Telephone 212/288-0700.