Travel Sketchbook
The diversity of motifs and themes suggests that Baldung carried sketchbooks on a wide range of occasions. Landscape drawings annotated in his hand, for example, attest to the fact that he carried sketchbooks on several trips to the Alsace, in the area of Freiburg and Basel, as well as on journeys through the Black Forest, Swabia and the Neckar Valley. He used them to jot down what he saw for later use in his works.
Shortly after Baldung’s death, these and other drawings came into the possession of the Strasbourg chronicler Sebald Büheler. He sorted them and had them bound in a costly brown kid-leather binding.
The leather binding with tooled Renaissance ornaments is typical of travel sketchbooks of the 16th century. The fore-edge flap folding over the front cover provided efficient protection of the sheets.
The Stylus
A silverpoint stylus pushed through two eyelets on the front of the book cover serves as a fastener to hold the book shut. Made of brass with a small piece of silver alloy soldered on, it is 22.4 cm long and has a diameter of approx. 2 mm. This arrangement allowed the artist to have paper and stylus to hand whenever he felt the need .
During Baldung’s life, silverpoint was a widely used technique to capture visual impressions in sketchbooks. The dry nature of the medium allowed it to be carried anywhere without problems, and the styluses did not need sharpening and were ready to use whenever the artist wanted them.
About Sebald Büheler
An inscription on the inside of the cover names Sebald Büheler, the former owner and compiler of the sketchbook in its current form, as well as the bookbinder and the year of the compilation: ‘Kostet 3 β-δ in zu binden Joachim Crafftberg[er] dem Buchbinder · 1 · 5 · 82 · Sebolt Büheler’ (Costs 3 β-δ [shillings] to bind by the bookbinder Joachim Crafftberg[er] · 1 · 5 · 82 · Sebolt Büheler).
Based on the inscription, we can assert that almost every annotation written in ink in the sketchbook can be attributed to Büheler.
Renaissance String Instruments
In the 16th century, the viol was a popular string instrument among the upper echelons of society. Numerous silverpoint drawings of the instrument in Baldung’s hand have come down to us, among them a frontal view of a six-string, eight-fret viol with its bow. When played, a viol is held between the legs like a modern cello, hence the instrument’s Italian name viola da gamba (viol for the leg).
The viol features in other works in Baldung’s oeuvre, such as:
The woman in the Allegorical Figure (also known as Allegory of Music and Woman with a Cat) rests her right hand on the instrument.
© Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen – Alte Pinakothek München Physiognomies
The sketchbook contains numerous physiognomic studies. They attest to Baldung’s interest in the diversity of human faces and their expressive potential. These two profile heads have markedly different features and were probably drawn in preparation of a pair of brutal henchmen.
Sensitive Drawing of a Child
The Portrait of a Noble Boy is notable for the sensitivity with which Baldung captured the tender fragility of the child’s head and the wide-eyed curiosity and innocence of his expression. The extravagant cap of the boy, who remains unidentified, betokens his noble birth.
A similar beret can be seen in Portrait of Hans Jacob, Baron of Morsperg and Beffert at the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart.
© Staatsgalerie Stuttgart 
Baldung on the Road
Executed around 1515, during a trip through Swabia, the sketch shows Weinsberg Castle near Heilbronn. To remind himself, Baldung annotated the drawing with the name of the site. The motif was later cut out and pasted onto a sheet of paper.
The castle is also known as Schloss Weibertreu (lit. ‘faithfulness of women’). During a siege in the 12th century, the women were allowed to leave with whatever they could carry on their shoulders – and walked out carrying their husbands. Baldung’s view of the castle documents the destruction wrought by Ulrich, Duke of Württemberg, during the War of the Landshut Succession in 1504.
Baldung’s Idealised Figure of the Virgin
The sensitive drawing of a young woman with long flowing hair is one of Baldung’s most beautiful images of the Virgin. Probably executed in preparation for a painting, the drawing is an idealised portrait which the artist signed with his monogram and dated 1523.
The original silverpoint drawing has faded dramatically and can in fact only be seen clearly under UV light. The image shown here was taken under UV light.
A great many of Baldung’s pictures of the Virgin are modelled on this silverpoint drawing.
Later Modifications
The inscription above the portrait, ‘Maria mater gracia mater misericordie / tu nos ab Hoste protege’ (Mary, Mother of Grace, Mother of Mercy, shield us from the enemy) and several other scribbles, among them a profile in the Virgin’s hair on the right, date from a later period.
Varied Interests
In the 1520s, Baldung began to explore the structure of fortifications and geometric forms, among them the golden ratio and Platonic solids. The lower half of this sheet shows three of the five Platonic solids – the cube and the icosahedron – as well as a sphere.
Platonic solids played an important role in the Middle Ages and were associated with different planets. Their depiction in the Karlsruhe Sketchbook may be indicative of Baldung’s interest, not just in geometry, but also in astrology.
Around the same time, Albrecht Dürer, too, explored the subject. Geometric solids – a sphere and a polyhedron – feature prominently alongside the personification of melancholy in Dürer’s famous engraving Melencolia I.
A Favourite Motif
The head of a young girl, which appears twice on this double page, once in profile and once in an oblique three-quarter profile seen from above, attests to Baldung’s marked interest in the model. The following page, too, features two drawings of her face, one seen from head-on, the other obliquely from below.
Some of Baldung’s paintings feature related physiognomies.
The kneeling Mary Magdalene in the painting of Christ as a Gardener has a very similar profile.
© HLMD, Wolfgang Fuhrmannek The girl standing in front of a grapevine in the panel of The Seven Ages of Woman is thought to be based on the girl in the drawing.
© Museum der bildenden Künste Leipzig, InGestalt Michael Ehritt On the Origin of the Title
The controversial title Head of a Roughly Twelve-Year-Old Sickly Girl was probably assigned to the subject because of the girl’s striking facial expression and because of the inscription, added in the 17th century: ‘Dises ist die Contra Factur des Jenigen Maidli so in / zehen Jahren nichts gessen. Von HBG’ (This is the likeness of the girl who has not eaten in ten years. By HBG).
The Compiler Sebald Büheler
Sebald Büheler appears to have applied his own aesthetic criteria to the arrangement of his cache of Baldung drawings and had them bound in 1582 to form the volume now known as the Karlsruhe Sketchbook. Büheler sorted the drawings by date and grouped similar motifs.
This double page with its eight pasted-on drawings illustrates the compilatory character of the book particularly well.
Improvisation Is Everything
As the sheet has images on both sides, it was folded along one edge and pasted in on the hinge thus formed, allowing for both sides to be viewed.
The viola da gamba illustrates the thematic arrangement of the sketches. The two images of instruments also seem to complement each other compositionally.
Ornate Suit of Armour
This drawing, turned sideways to fit into the sketchbook, shows the imposing figure of a knight in armour on horseback. His severe profile and the ornamentation of the suit of armour highlight the linear quality of the silverpoint drawings.
The sketch was probably made around 1515, during Baldung’s Swabian journey, when the artist visited Horneck Castle and its armoury.
Drawing en Plein Air
The presence of several annotated drawings of Swabian castles suggests that Baldung carried a sketchbook during the Swabian journey he undertook around 1515. He drew two views of Horneck Castle on the river Neckar. At the time of Baldung’s visit, the castle was the seat of the Teutonic Order.
Comparable landscape views occasionally appear in the background of Baldung’s paintings and prints.
Two Emperors
It is not by accident that the two emperors, Maximilian I and Charles V, are brought together on a double page. Their relationship went beyond politics; Maximilian I was the predecessor and grandfather of Charles V.
Between Individualisation and Idealisation
The profile of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V was drawn in 1536 and is signed and dated in Baldung’s hand. Later, Sebald Büheler, compiler of the Karlsruhe Sketchbook, annotated the drawing, ‘Keyßer Carlo der fünffte’ (Emperor Charles V). Most likely the artist did not draw the emperor from life but from an as-yet-unidentified pictorial source.
Maximilian I
It is uncertain whether the bust of Emperor Maximilian I was drawn from life when the emperor was in Strasbourg in 1511 (not in 1501, as the erroneous date would suggest). It is the earliest drawing in the sketchbook.
Emperor Maximilian I was the first ruler to make sustained and innovative use of the then-new media of the printed book and the single-sheet woodcut to promote his own image. He commissioned Baldung and other famous artists of the time with the illustration of his prayer book – a highly prestigious commission.
Baldung included a portrait of Emperor Maximilian I (in the role of the pagan jurist Theophilus) in his panel painting The Flower Miracle of Saint Dorothy. The painting was commissioned by a confidant of the emperor.
Other important artists of the time, among them Albrecht Dürer, also portrayed Emperor Maximilian I.
Sebald Büheler’s Inscriptions
As with the portrait of Charles V, Sebald Büheler added the rank and name of the sitter – ‘Keyser maximilian’ – above the pasted-on drawing of Maximilian I.
A Habsburg Symbol
The emperor wears the Order of the Golden Fleece. The ornate chain is draped over his shoulders and frames his fur collar. Rooted in Greek mythology, the Golden Fleece was the woolly coat of a golden winged ram held in Colchis. The Order of the Golden Fleece was founded by Philip the Good of Burgundy in 1430 and became part of Habsburg iconography with the marriage of Philip’s granddaughter to Maximilian I in 1477.
Christoph I of Baden
The three-quarter portrait of Christoph I, Margrave of Baden, emphasises the strikingly angular features of the 59-year-old sitter.
He was one of Baldung’s most important patrons at the beginning of the painter’s career.
Drawn from life, this study served the artist as model for the portrait on panel of 1516. In total, four portraits of the margrave by Baldung have come down to us: the Margrave Panel, a woodcut, the silverpoint drawing and a panel painting.
Historical Annotation
Sebald Büheler, the former owner of the Karlsruhe Sketchbook, used pen and ink to add the erroneous annotation ‘margrave Bernhardt zu Baden der Alte’ (Margrave Bernhardt of Baden the Elder).
A Ruler Forced into Regency
In old age, Christoph I of Baden suffered from mental illness. In 1515, three years after the portrait drawing, he was forced to abdicate in favour of his sons who went on to have him proclaimed of unsound mind one year later.
Snapshots of Life
The two studies of a child’s head are based on the same model. Baldung modelled the face with great tenderness. Using delicate lines and hatchings, he achieved a vivid likeness of remarkable immediacy.
Three drawings from Copenhagen probably show the same model whom Baldung captured in different situations. The sensitivity with which he drew the child suggests a special interest in the motif or sitter.
Similar heads of children also appear in Baldung’s public works, for example in the woodcut The Drunk Bacchus to the right of the wine god or in the rendering of putti (naked children or cherubs).
© Kunsthandlung Helmut H. Rumbler Studies from Nature
The sketchbook is not just a collection of motifs. The study of the Head of a Cow, for example, contains handwritten colour specifications to provide detailed information should Baldung wish to return to the motif later.
© Städel Museum Vivid Details
Wide-eyed, serious and attentive, the boy in this drawing looks straight at the viewer. The boy’s face, his mouth and collar are carefully modelled, while the hair is handled more cursorily. Baldung didn’t just capture the boy’s likeness but also a glimpse of the budding personality of the young sitter before him.
Supporting and Non-Supporting Leg
Baldung’s drawing shows the lower half of a male body with a very straight right leg and a conspicuously turned-out left one. This stance varies the contrapposto motif beloved by artists since antiquity. The term describes a human figure standing with most of its weight resting on one straight leg, while the other is bent and unengaged.
In his drawings, paintings and prints, Baldung kept returning to the contrapposto motif, using it in a wide range of thematic contexts and showing it from different angles.
Botany 101
Baldung’s numerous accurate drawings of plants attest to the artist’s keen eye and interest in botany. Both are evident in his drawings of a columbine and several vine leaves. The two plants were used in art as Christian symbols.
Columbine
Columbine blossoms were an attribute of the Virgin and a symbol of humility.
Grapevine
The grapevine was a symbol of Christ and stood for the wine of the Eucharist. Vine leaves were also seen as symbols of good fortune or fertility and are one of the attributes of the ancient Roman wine god Bacchus (Dionysus in Greek).
Bad-Hair Day?
The bust of a middle-aged burgher with a chin beard was probably drawn in preparation of a painted portrait. The man’s somewhat dishevelled hair – unlikely to be repeated in a finished portrait – suggests that it was drawn from life.
Preparatory Sketches
The two motifs on this sheet were probably drawn in preparation of a painting. The unidentified coat of arms, which shows three peapods with two seed leaves on a trimount, probably indicates the patron who commissioned the work. The male hands joined in prayer suggest that he was to be included in the painting as an adoring donor figure.
Exotic Bird
Baldung’s drawing of a ring-necked parakeet is one of the earliest depictions of such a bird in the history of Western art. It was made soon after the arrival of the first parakeets in Europe. Where and when Baldung saw the bird remains uncertain. What is interesting, however, are the colour specifications he assigned to the different parts of the bird’s plumage.
Baldung later used this and other drawings of exotic birds in his paintings The Virgin and Child with Parrots and The Seven Ages of Woman.
A silverpoint drawing, Head and Body of a Parakeet, in Copenhagen is very similar to the one in the Karlsruhe Sketchbook and suggests that Baldung produced several drawings of the same bird.
© Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen
Strasbourg in Baldung’s Time
In the 1520s, Baldung ascended the spire of Strasbourg cathedral to record the look of the city from above. The drawing shown here captures the view towards the north and across the neighbourhood in which the artist lived at the time. In the first half of the 16th century, it was considered one of the most elegant residential areas of the city. Baldung’s street, the Brandgasse (today’s rue Brûlée) was home to numerous high-ranking citizens.
A Hand-Coloured Pen-and-Ink Drawing
This drawing, which was coloured in at a later date, was most likely not made by Baldung. The sheet shows the Strasbourg city wall with the Stone Gate (destroyed in 1870) and the ridge turret of the Protestant church of Saint-Pierre-le-Jeune.
The Fort of Saint Nicholas in Rhodes
The Karlsruhe Sketchbook contains numerous views of Rhodes, which reference the context of contemporary political events. On 22 December 1522, after a six-month siege by the Ottoman fleet, the island of Rhodes, a possession of the Knights Hospitaller (Order of Saint John) since 1309, was ceded to Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. It is likely that the Strasbourg commandery of the Knights Hospitaller commissioned Baldung with a series of woodcuts of the famous fortifications of the island and provided him with topographical material.
Manuscript Annotation
Baldung himself annotated the drawing Caste s nicolay to identify the Fort of Saint Nicholas in Rhodes.
One Fortress – Many Views
Baldung’s topographical records of Rhodes and the Fort of Saint Nicholas were not drawn from life but after models by other artists and differ markedly from other contemporary views. And even within his oeuvre, which otherwise shows no indication of any deeper interest in architecture, these topographical works occupy a singular position.
A Sketch of a Horse from Nature
The horse is one of the most common animal motifs in Baldung’s work, and the sketchbook contains a sizable number of drawings and studies of horses. This quick silverpoint drawing shows multiple aspects of the ears of the animal. The layering of these different aspects is probably due to the horse’s unwillingness to hold still for the artist. The fleeting impressions are captured in tentative, searching silverpoint marks.
The ‘Portrait’ of a Horse
Although this drawing is evidently of the same horse as the cursory sketch that precedes it, it is handled in an entirely different manner. Each line is drawn with great care and deliberation to render the head of the animal and its expression as precisely as possible. It is evidently an idealised reiteration of the motif.
Detail Studies of a Horse
This sheet shows aspects of different parts of a horse: Head and neck in profile, a frontal view of the chest and the upper part of the front legs. The artist turned the sheets several times as he drew but left the individual sketches unfinished. Did he lose interest in the motifs? Was he disturbed, so worked in fits and starts? The sheet raises numerous questions that must remain unanswered. Paper was expensive, and it was imperative not to waste it by leaving blank spaces.
View into the City
In contrast to Baldung’s view of Strasbourg, in which the artist captured the city from the lofty height of the cathedral spire, here the view shows the city at ground level. The city in question is Rhodes, and the view shows not only the landmarks – the Conventual Church of Saint John and the Via del Mercato Vecchio – but also the simple flat-roofed houses. Cursorily and schematically drawn not from life but after models by other artists, the small, closely spaced houses are lined up along imaginary streets.
Slave Galley
The ship in this drawing is a three-masted galley which was rowed by slaves in the 16th century. Like the other drawings of ships in the Karlsruhe Sketchbook, this sheet is associated with the views of Rhodes.
Pleated Elegance
This very faded drawing only reveals the full extent of its sophistication and expressiveness under UV light, which brings out the skill with which Baldung captured the fine pleating of a woman’s belted gown.
Cornflower
Throughout his career, Baldung had a keen interest in nature studies. This representation of a cornflower is part of a group of drawings he put together as a repertory for later use. The different views of the plant attest to his close study from multiple angles. On the right of the sheet, Baldung recorded the name of the flower: ‘Blaww korn Blum’ (blue cornflower).
Two Men in Profile
Baldung’s lifelong interest in physiognomy is borne out by the two male profile heads arranged one behind the other. They are not portraits but types. In this case, the artist studied the distinctive features of coarse and thick-set faces. Because of their malicious expression, the two heads were associated with the myrmidon figures in Baldung’s painting of the Martyrdom of Saint Stephen (today in Strasbourg).
The Profile Heads of Two Men with Contrasting Features were inspired by the same interests and probably drawn with a view to using them in a painting.
A Poisonous Plant
This sketch of a sprig of Solomon’s seal, a poisonous wildflower, is one of Baldung’s many botanical studies. It was probably through the botanist Otto Brunfels, who had published a pioneering illustrated herbal in the 1530s, that Baldung was first exposed to drawings of this type.
Inspired by this drawing in Baldung’s sketchbook, the contemporary artist Marcel van Eeden developed a series of 25 drawings that tell a mysterious story and are on view in the parallel display, Das Karlsruher Skizzenbuch | The Karlsruhe Sketchbook.
Columbine
The detailed drawing of a columbine is placed in the centre of the sheet. In Christian art, the plant is one of the attributes of the Virgin, alongside the rose and the lily.
Together with Albrecht Dürer, Hans Baldung Grien was one of the first artists to devote a study to the columbine.
QS:P170,Q5580, als gemeinfrei gekennzeichnet, Details auf Wikimedia Commons Plant studies such as this served as stock motifs for a wide range of paintings: Very delicate and easily missed, a single columbine blossom nestles in the grass at the feet of the martyred saint in the large version of the woodcut of Saint Sebastian.
A Bumblebee
Probably added to the plant study as an afterthought, the bumblebee creates the impression of Baldung experiencing and capturing a fleeting moment of life in nature. The annotation in Baldung’s hand reads ‘grow’ (grau) and ‘gel’ (gelb) and records the insect’s grey-yellow colouration.
An Unusual Motif
The study of the small child’s whistle – a rarely depicted instrument – appears in three of Baldung’s drawings. Further to the sheet in Karlsruhe, there are two more drawings in Copenhagen. In one of them a child is holding the toy in its hand. This lends weight to the identification of the unusual motif as a whistle and dispels earlier interpretations of it as a quiver.
Flowering Forest Fruit
The carefully executed botanical study reproduces a flowering berry plant with near-scientific precision. In the Christian context the wild berry is a symbol of honesty and an attribute of the Virgin.
In Baldung’s oeuvre, the plant appears in several paintings at the feet of the figures.
© Museum der bildenden Künste Leipzig, InGestalt Michael Ehritt Native Plants
The daisy and numerous other humble native plants are recorded in the Karlsruhe Sketchbook with great care and a degree of precision that at the time was reserved almost exclusively for scientific studies. Notes with colour specifications for the blossoms allowed Baldung to return to the drawings as source material for paintings.
In Baldung’s day, artists often used the daisy and other native plants to add symbolic meaning to the foreground of paintings.
The daisy was seen as a Marian flower and could allude to salvation and eternal life.
Wine, Grapes, Grapevines and Vine
Grapevines are the most common plant in the Karlsruhe Sketchbook. The reasons for this preponderance are manifold: botanical interest, the multivalence of the plant’s symbolism and its usefulness as a stock motif.
While the vine leaves were seen as an attribute of the classical wine god Dionysus/Bacchus, bunches of grapes are an ancient symbol of fertility and in Christianity became a symbol of the Eucharist. The vine can be read as an emblem of God’s blessing and divine mercy and as a symbol of abundance and life. The Virgin or the Christ Child with a bunch of grapes were popular motifs.
In Baldung’s works, vines, vine leaves and grapes carry different meanings and serve different purposes:
- As an attribute of the Drunken Bacchus
- As an ornament in a book illustration
- As a symbol of life in The Seven Ages of Woman
- As a symbol of temperance in the Portrait of the Canon Ambrosius Volmar Keller
- As a symbol of the Eucharist in Mary with Grapes
The Vine Branch
Vines were also seen as a symbol of the cardinal virtue of temperance, and it is in that context that they appear in the Portrait of the Canon Ambrosius Volmar Keller.
© Musées de la Ville de Strasbourg, M. Bertola Studies of the Human Form
Baldung produced numerous studies of arms and hands in a wide range of positions in preparation for various paintings or the woodcut Adam and Eve.
More often than not, the limbs are not clearly identifiable as male or female.
Exotic Appeal
Baldung’s numerous studies of parrots and parakeets attest to his fascination with these exotic birds and their strikingly colourful plumage. Annotations provide information about the colour of the backs, breasts, claws and plumage of the animals. Baldung’s drawings of parrots are among the first of their kind in the history of Western art and were made soon after the arrival of the first specimens of these birds in Europe.
Two particularly splendid parrots can be found in The Seven Ages of Woman and The Virgin and Child with Parrots.
The Billy Goat
By the late 15th century, the billy goat, a symbol of fertility in antiquity, had come to be seen as a sign of unbridled libidinous appetites.
With this negative connotation, the rambunctious animal could stand in for the devil himself, who was believed to assume its form to consort with witches. It is for this reason that billy goats appear in many images of witches by Baldung and his contemporaries, among them Albrecht Dürer.
Drawings by a Different Hand
The Portrait of a Woman with a High Collar – and the linden leaves in the upper part of the sheet – were probably not drawn by Baldung. It would seem that over the course of the centuries, a few ‘readers’ used the sketchbook for drawings of their own – presumably with the historical silverpoint stylus.
The White Gate
The quick sketch shows the White Gate in Strasbourg. Construction of the gate had begun in 1533, and Baldung captured it in the second half of the 16th century. The drawing shows the view of the gate tower from within the city. The drawing is an important historical record of the building which was torn down in 1871.
Exotic Animals
The import of exotic animals into Europe from overseas began in the 15th century. Parrots, monkeys, camels and lions were displayed in cages and presented in travelling menageries. Whether Baldung actually saw the camel – an exceedingly exotic creature at the time – or drew it, as was common practice among artists, from another image remains unknown.
In Baldung’s painting The Creation of Man and the Animals, the two-humped Bactrian camel appears close to the horizon line in the upper right of the composition.
© Angermuseum Erfurt Dangerous Exotic Animals
The quick sketch of a recumbent lioness was probably made at the same time as the study of the camel.
Design for a Stained Glass Window
This drawing was made in preparation of a stained glass window. The cursory sketch of the arched frame is inscribed with numerous annotations, among them notes concerning the colours he planned to use for the different architectural elements.
The central motif of the design is Saint Michael with the dragon. According to the Book of Revelation (the Apocalypse of John), Michael is the archangel who defeated the dragon, identified as Satan, and the rebel angels, casting them out of heaven and throwing them down to earth.
This is the only stained glass design in the Karlsruhe Sketchbook, but a sizable number of preparatory drawings as well as finished glass paintings by Baldung have come down to us and attest to his significance in that field of creative endeavour.
Rank and Name
The coat of arms in the design for a glass painting was identified as the crest of Nicolaus Ziegler, vice chancellor of the Holy Roman Empire, senior secretary of the imperial chancery, Landvogt (bailiff) in Upper and Lower Swabia and Lord of Barr in the Alsace.
Nicolaus Kniebs
Baldung drew the Portrait of the Strasbourg Magistrate Nicolaus Kniebs in the last year of his life – the artist died in 1545. Drawn from life, the study was probably executed in preparation for a painted likeness. In contrast to the other portraits in the sketchbook, this one is drawn on parchment. The ground is markedly coarser than the one used on paper.
Baldung’s Monogram
The artist signed the portrait with his monogram, which is inscribed above the sitter. He later added the inscription: ‘1545 Ao etatis sue Lxvi’.
Further Inscriptions
Sebald Büheler, the compiler and owner of the Karlsruhe Sketchbook, used a silverpoint stylus to add: ‘H. Nicolaus Hugo Knieps Alt Ameister’ and pen and ink to write: ‘Herr Nicolaus Hugo Knieps der Herr Ammeyster ETATIS SUE 66 1545 HB’ (monogrammed).
The Theologian Caspar Hedio
The detailed and vivid drawing shows Caspar Hedio, a theologian and preacher at Strasbourg cathedral, in three-quarter profile. Drawn from life, the study served as the model for a woodcut in 1543. The harsher and more stylised appearance of the sitter’s features in the print are a result of the woodcut technique.
Caspar Hedio, born in 1494 in Ettlingen, was a key figure of the Reformation in Strasbourg. As a historian, he compiled a world chronicle that attracted much attention. The woodcut, which was based on the silverpoint portrait drawing, was published in the chronicle Hedio published in Strasbourg (Ein auszerleszne chronik von Anfang der Welt bis auff das iar nach Christi unsers eynigen heyland gepurt 1543).
Artist’s Signature
The damaged monogram and the year 1543 are in the artist’s hand.
Additions by the Owner
As in numerous other studies, Sebald Büheler added comments and notes to the portrait. The explanatory note, ‘D.Caspar Hedion predikant im Münster alhie’ (D.Caspar Hedion, preacher in the cathedral here) was written with a silverpoint stylus; the later one to the same effect – ‘D. Caspar Hedion predigant Im Münster’ – in ink.
Baldung’s Fascination with Colours
Baldung annotated his drawing of a parrot with colour specifications:
At the head: grien (green),
above the beak: wis (white);
on the neck: schwartz (black);
at the nape: bl (blue);
neck plumage: gold;
breast plumage: gold;
beneath: gel (yellow);
wing: liech blo (light blue)
By a Different Hand
Not all drawings in the Karlsruhe Sketchbook can be securely attributed to Baldung. Some – for example the Profile Head of a Man with a Long Beard and Long Hair – date to a later period and were drawn by a different hand. This particular drawing was probably added in the mid-19th century.
Architectural Drawings
Baldung’s habit of carrying sketchbooks on his travels and capturing the sights he came upon is borne out by numerous architectural drawings in his oeuvre.
This image of Maursmünster Abbey shows the building from the southwest. The Romanesque west end, with its three massive towers abuts the Gothic nave. The drawing of a tower to the right of the study was probably added later.
Badly damaged in 1525 during the German Peasants’ War, the abbey was rebuilt in 1542. Baldung’s drawing documents the reconstruction works that were underway during his visit. The stair towers are still roofless.
Atmospheric Views
The views of castles on this double page are probably of Dagsburg Castle (now Dabo in north-eastern France). Cursory and quick in execution, the atmospheric style of these drawings attests to a change of approach to landscape in Baldung’s late work.
Mountain Contours
It is only upon closer inspection that we can make out the motif of this sketch: the silhouette of a mountain landscape – turned upside down. The artist added dozens of colour specifications for the different strata of the formation.
w = weiß (white)
fyelnegelfar = veilchenfarben (violet colors)
grie = grün (green)
gel-grien = gelbgrün (yellow-green)
schögrie = schöngrün (beautiful green)
rot (red)
golfar = goldfarben (gold)
bru = braun (brown)
gro = grau (grey)
grogrie = graugrün (grey green)
gelgrie = gelbgrün (yellow-green)
schwitzergrie = Schweizergrün (swiss green)
jegergrie = Jägergrün (hunter green)
dunkel grien = dunkelgrün (dark green)
libfar = leibfarben = inkarnat (flesh-colored)
What makes the drawing confusing are the later additions, among them a praying male nude with a cloak, probably added in the 17th century, the head of a monk, added in the 19th century, as well as numerous inscriptions and scribbles.
Unmistakable Hand
Conspicuously placed in the upper left, an inscription in Sebald Büheler’s distinctive hand reads ‘sindt 75 bletter’ (consists of 75 sheets). It follows that since 1582, the year Büheler had the drawings bound, the sketchbook suffered no losses.
Blank Pages
The Karlsruhe Sketchbook contains more than 14 blank pages. The original order of the sheets and the pagination by Sebald Büheler remained.
Karlsruhe Sketchbook
With more than 100 silverpoint drawings, the Karlsruhe Sketchbook is one of the most remarkable works by Hans Baldung Grien. The 16th century owner, Sebald Büheler probably inherited several fragments of sketchbooks from the estate of his brother-in-law, Nikolaus Kremer (a former pupil of Baldung), and had them bound into a single volume in 1582. Thanks to numerous correspondences with paintings and prints by Baldung and the fact that the artist dated many of the drawings himself, a timespan for their period of origin can be determined, with the earliest drawing dating to 1511 and the latest to 1545.
Baldung had a keen interest in his surroundings and captured his impressions with great immediacy. Thus, the sketchbook encompasses a wide range of themes – portraits, landscapes, city views, animals, plants and objects – providing the artist with a large stock of motifs to draw on.
In the 15th and 16th century, silverpoint styluses were a popular choice for drawing in sketchbooks. The dry medium was easy to transport and could be used anywhere – the metal stylus didn’t even need sharpening. In the case of the Karlsruhe Sketchbook, the surviving historical stylus slides through brass clasps and holds the fore-edge flap and front cover together.
The Karlsruhe Sketchbook attests to the early interest in assembling and systematically organising Baldung’s corpus of drawings and to the development of his draughtsmanship and style.