Search Results

English painters, copyists, writers, and epigraphers. Norman de Garis Davies (b Glasgow, Sept 14, 1865; d Oxford, Nov 5, 1941) and his wife, Nina [née Cummins] Davies (b Thessaloníki, Jan 6, 1881; d Hinskey Hill, Berks, Apr 21, 1965), recorded the tomb paintings of dynastic Egypt. Their scrupulous work was of unparalleled importance, both in preserving a vanishing archaeological record and in shaping 20th-century perceptions of ancient Egyptian funerary art.

Norman had no formal artistic training and became interested in Egyptian archaeology while working as a Nonconformist minister in Australia. In 1898 he joined Flinders Petrie’s excavations at Deshasheh as a copyist and epigrapher, later working at Deir el-Gebrawi, Sheikh Said, Saqqara, and Amarna for the Egypt Exploration Society. Nina studied at the Slade (1900–1902) and later at the Royal College of Art under Walter Crane. They met and married in Alexandria in 1907...

[Hanequin de Egas]

(fl 1448–70).

Spanish architect. He was the brother of Egas Cueman (see Egas Cueman) and is accordingly often incorrectly called Hanequin de Egas in bibliographies, although the documents refer to him as Hanequin de Bruselas. He introduced Flamboyant Gothic to Toledo and was the leader of a group of artists among whom were his brothers Egas Cueman and Antón Martínez de Bruselas (fl 1448–58), an architect’s assistant. He is first documented in 1448 as Master of the Works of Toledo Cathedral, but he must have arrived in Toledo a little before 1440, probably to work on the funeral chapel of Alvaro de Luna in the cathedral, which had great influence on subsequent memorial chapels in Castile. About this time Hanequin probably also worked on the baptistery chapel for Archbishop Juan de Cerezuela who, in 1434, had come to Toledo from Seville where the new cathedral was being built. Around ...

[Master of the Halepagen Altar]

(b Lübeck, c. 1460; d Hamburg, 1528).

German Late Gothic painter. His Lübeck origins are demonstrated stylistically in his contribution to the altar of the Lübeck Corpus Christi Brotherhood (1496; Lübeck, St Annen-Mus.). In 1499 he probably married a woman previously married, in succession, to Hans Bornemann, Hinrik Funhof, and Absalon Stumme (fl c. 1486–98): this enabled him to become established in Hamburg as a workshop proprietor. Both Stumme and his wife’s son Henrik Bornemann died that year. Dedeke’s first task was therefore to complete their work on the wings of the St Luke altar for the Jakobikirche in Hamburg. He was accepted into the painters’ guild in 1500: in 1502 he became master of the Brotherhood of St Thomas. After his second surviving altarpiece in Hamburg, for the Company of Fishers (1508; Jakobikirche), he probably remained the leading artist of Hamburg until his death.

Dedeke’s style remained basically unchanged from the Corpus Christi altar. Of this now incomplete double-winged altarpiece, with a carved shrine by ...

(b 1375; d c. 1425).

Catalan illuminator, son of Ramón Destorrents. He evidently had a successful career since by 1403 he was engaged in the illumination of the Missal of S Eulália (Barcelona, Anxiv Capitolare S Església Catedral), one of the principal works of Spanish 14th-century manuscript illumination. The often celebrated Last Judgement (fol. 1r) of this Missal reveals the work of an accomplished illuminator working in a delicate Gothic style (seen in the depiction of Heaven). Rafael was, however, also fully conversant with the more realistic, if fantastic, manner used for the representation of the damned souls. As in Ramón’s work, traces of Sienese influence are apparent in the choice of colour. By 1408, Rafael had been ordained a priest and was also known as Gregori, presbiter Barchinone. Most of his works are now lost, including a Missal illuminated in 1410 for the Councillors of Barcelona. In 1425 he was working on a retable (untraced)....

(Ghezzi)

(b Asciano, Siena, c. 1400; d Siena, before 1445).

Italian painter. His few surviving works show that he played a pivotal role in the movement from Gothic painting to the Renaissance style in Siena during the 15th century. He is first documented in 1420, as an apprentice on an unidentified project for Siena Cathedral, and his name appears near the end of the Ruolo dei pittori, the list of the painters’ guild compiled from 1428.

Inferences about Domenico’s artistic education are suggested by the first work securely assignable to him, a small panel of the Virgin and Child Enthroned with SS Peter and Paul (Washington, DC, N.G.A.). This shows an early awareness of Florentine art of the 1420s and complete familiarity with the new artistic language of the Renaissance. The architectural setting, in classical style, is apparently inspired by the new conception of the altarpiece as a sacra conversazione, favoured by Fra Angelico at the beginning of the 1420s. The Virgin, housed in a shell niche, is crowned with a garland held by putti reminiscent of Donatello. She sits firmly and solemnly on a marble throne, holding the muscular child. The composition is a free variation on a model by Masaccio, whose early work, like Domenico’s, shares many features with the sculpture of Luca della Robbia. Another Florentine element, apparently derived from Paolo Uccello, is the halo with star points, also used by Domenico in later works. The strongly Florentine orientation of this early work refutes the theory that he was trained by ...

(fl 1487–1510).

Spanish painter. He worked in Navarre and Aragon. His paintings, in oil on panel, show the influence of northern European Gothic acquired through his contact with Castilian and Aragonese painters, although German engravings, such as those by Martin Schongauer, were also a source of inspiration. He painted highly expressive and dramatic religious scenes, using brilliant colour and gold applied over stucco in relief as decoration for the haloes and clothing of the sacred figures.

Pedro Díaz de Oviedo executed the high altar retable of the Colegiata, Tudela, with Diego del Aguila. Completed in 1494, it depicts scenes from the Life of St Mary, the patron saint of the church. Also in Navarre is the altarpiece of St Mark in the church of the Virgen del Romero, Cascante, finished in 1510, which shows signs of artistic decline. His works in Aragon, for example the altarpieces of St James the Greater (...

Town in Bavaria, Germany. A Hohenstaufen possession, it was a free imperial city by the 13th century, and in the 1370s the walls were expanded to their present extent. The parish church of St Georg, one of the most famous Late Gothic, south German hall churches, dominates the town at the main crossroads; its south side, facing the old Town Hall and cemetery, was originally the show side. Civic pride is evident in the building, symbols of the bakers’ and coopers’ guilds in the east window demonstrating the importance of the guilds, which shared power with the patrician families from the late 14th century.

The earliest known church on the site of St Georg was built in the 12th century. The existing west tower was added c. 1220–30, and in the second half of the 14th century the church was expanded to include a six-bay nave of nearly the same dimensions as the present one and a single-aisled choir terminating in a five-sided apse. The present church, slightly off the axis of its predecessor, was founded in ...

(d Strasbourg, 1470s).

German architect, son or nephew of Johann Dotzinger. He was said to come from Worms and must therefore have been born in the middle Rhine region, where he was trained in the circle of Madern Gerthener. Later he travelled to Basle, where Johann Dotzinger was working, and thence he must have established contact with Matthäus Ensinger, probably working with him in Berne. He came to Strasbourg from Weissenburg in Alsace, where he had built the Holy Sepulchre (mid-1440s) in the collegiate church; this would have been his first commission in his own right. The Holy Sepulchre is a canopy tomb of considerable height. At the level of the canopy, between the three richly decorated front piers, are keel arches decorated with tracery.

He was employed from 1451 as foreman of the mason’s lodge of Strasbourg Cathedral. His first work in Strasbourg was the baptismal font, which bears the date 1453...

Term invented in the early 19th century by Thomas Rickman to denote the style of Early Gothic ecclesiastical architecture that flourished in Britain from c. 1190 to c. 1250. Rickman’s original style label, which he applied to architecture of the period 1189–1307, was popularized by Nikolaus Pevsner in The Buildings of England. The term is still in favour where equivalent labels (‘lancet’ or ‘pointed style’) have fallen out of use. The style follows the Romanesque and develops into the Decorated style and is characterized by the use of rib vaults, sharply pointed arches, lancet windows, deep mouldings, and the use of decorative contrasting marbles and foliage sculpture, especially Stiff-leaf. It was superseded after the mid-13th century by the window tracery and patterned vaults of the Decorated style). (See also Gothic §II 1..)

The Early English style combined such formal aspects of French Gothic as rib vaults with English pre-Gothic decorative and structural tendencies. It developed from several regional centres of late 12th-century Gothic, the most important of which were the choir of ...

[First Gothic; Fr. premier art gothique]. First Gothic

The generally accepted term for the first phase of the French Gothic style (see Gothic, §II, 1), lasting from its beginning at Saint-Denis Abbey (c. 1140; see Saint-Denis Abbey, §I, 2) until the reconstruction of Chartres Cathedral (begun after 1194; see Chartres, §I, 1). The Early Gothic style was at first largely confined to the areas in and around Paris and those under royal control, but generally the style spread without respect for political boundaries, having quickly lost its initial Parisian association with the Capetian monarchs. Areas contiguous to the royal domain, such as Normandy and Champagne, were the first to benefit from the structural and spatial changes. The first Gothic buildings in England, Spain, and Germany are described as ‘Early Gothic’, but the practice of adopting stylistic features while rejecting structural innovation indicates that in these countries the main connotations of the term should be chronological. Only with the cathedrals of ...

(fl 1495; d by 1532).

Netherlandish architect, son of Egas Cueman, active in Spain. He and his brother Enrique Egas were the last exponents of Late Gothic in Toledo. Antón was assistant architect at Toledo Cathedral in 1495 and was appointed Master of the Works with Enrique the following year. They regularly worked together, collaborating on the design of the Hospital Real (now Hospital de los Reyes Católicos), Santiago de Compostela, in 1499. In 1500 Antón was consulted about the dome of Saragossa Cathedral and in 1503 made plans for the convent of S Fe, Toledo. In 1509 and 1512 he is mentioned in connection with the new cathedral in Salamanca (see New Cathedral of Salamanca). He was living in Torrijos, Toledo, about this time and must have worked on the Colegiata there. In 1525 he designed the Patio de la Botica at Guadalupe, Cáceres, and prepared designs for the monastery of Valparaiso, near Chinchon, Madrid, with ...

(fl ?1480; d Sept 1534).

Netherlandish architect, son of Egas Cueman, active in Spain. He was the most important architect in Toledo in the first quarter of the 16th century and, with his numerous commissions, he spread the ideas of this school throughout Castile. A characteristic feature of his work is his adherence to Gothic values; when Renaissance details appear, they are the work of other architects or decorators. He may have contributed to work at the Colegio de Santa Cruz, Valladolid, in 1480, but the reference is unreliable. In 1496 he was appointed Master of the Works of Toledo Cathedral in association with his brother Antón Egas, and designed the cathedral’s Capilla Mozárabe (1502–24). He held a similar position at Plasencia Cathedral, Cáceres, the following year and is said to have initiated its rebuilding at this period. He collaborated with his brother at the Hospital de Santa Cruz, Toledo (begun c. 1500...

(b Niederscheidweiler, nr Wittlich, 1835; d Cologne, 1874).

German sculptor. Early in his career he worked in Cologne with the neo-Gothic sculptor Christoph Stephan (1797–1864). Alexander Schnütgen, the Domkapitular of Cologne Cathedral, recommended him to August Ottmar von Essenwein, who from 1868 had been restoring St Maria im Kapitol in Cologne. For this church Elscheid sculpted the life-size Pietà (c. 1870) for the south transept (now in the crypt) and the over-life-size wooden Triumphant Crucifixion group (c. 1870; Bonn-Poppelsdorf, St Sebastian), the latter inspired by the late Romanesque group depicting the same subject in the chapel of Schloss Wechselburg. A Vesperbild in the Katholische Pfarrkirche Mariae Himmelfahrt in Mönchengladbach and one in Kempen (Städt. Kramer-Mus.) are so similar stylistically that they can be attributed to Elscheid. A Heart of Jesus (c. 1870) in the narthex of St Maria im Kapitol may also be by Elscheid. In addition to these commissions, he carved small hard-wood statues in the High Gothic style that was prevalent in Cologne. They were rendered with such skill that in later years they were assumed to be either authentic Gothic works or fakes. It is uncertain, however, whether he intentionally intended these sculptures to deceive the viewer. The controversy over their origins has resulted in a renewed interest in them and has led to the rediscovery of several that were previously little-known. Such works (all ...

(b Swabia, 1360s; d Strasbourg, 1419).

German architect and sculptor. The influence of the Parler family on Ulrich’s early work suggests that he completed his training in Swabia, but he must also have been at the cathedrals of Prague and Strasbourg, for his work shows significant knowledge of both buildings. In 1392 he became Master of the Works at Ulm Minster, before which he had been involved with the cathedral works in Milan. In 1397, the five-year contract usual at Ulm was changed to life tenure. In 1399 he was also Master of the Works at Strasbourg, where he went to live, and at about this time he became Master of the Works at the Frauenkirche in Esslingen. In 1414 he produced a design for the north tower of Basle Minster.

When Ulrich von Ensingen began work in Ulm, the eight eastern bays of the nave were already standing. He was chiefly responsible for finishing the nave and for the west tower, although he left the nave unvaulted. One version of his plans, in the lower part of the St Martin window (in the west tower), shows that he adopted the lower height of the nave, probably established by ...

(b Cambridge, bapt Aug 25, 1722; d Cambridge, Sept 14, 1784).

English architect. He was an enthusiastic antiquary as well as a reliable architect; he built in both the classical style of the mid-18th century and the Gothic. He was educated at the grammar school in the shadow of King’s College Chapel; at 18 years old he was already drawing ancient Cambridge buildings, including the castle and Barnwell ‘leper chapel’. On leaving school he joined the family business, which undertook general building work and joinery; when his father died in 1749 Essex took sole control. He received a more academic architectural training from James Burrough (1691–1764), the Caius College don and the city’s leading amateur architect, and soon he became Burrough’s chief assistant and collaborator. In 1753 he married the daughter of a Cambridge bookseller, and in 1756 he was commissioned to build an eleven-bay range along the river front of Queens’ College. Only the south-west pavilion (the present Essex building) was constructed, but it established his reputation as a designer of convenient and well-lit college rooms. During the same period Essex reconstructed the decayed Jacobean ranges of Neville’s Court in Trinity College. He retained the existing structure but modernized it by making the attic into a proper second floor and removing strapwork ornament. His major classical work (his last in association with Burrough) was the new chapel and domed ante-chapel for Clare College in ...

(b ?Andernach; fl 1590s; d before 1598).

German carpenter and copyist. He made a craftsman’s copybook (Cologne, Hist. Archv, Hs. Wf^o. 276*) that reproduced important verbal and graphic evidence on particular design techniques of Late Gothic master masons in Germany. He included a few biographical details, such as variant spellings of his name and the fact that he was known in his home town of Andernach as Jacob Keul. On one page of architectural drawings he wrote, ‘Drawn in Vienna in the year 1593’, and on another, ‘Drawn in Breslau in Silesia in 1593’. By 1596 he had returned to Andernach and inscribed one of his drawings accordingly. The Andernach archives have revealed that he was the son of Jacob Keul, who may also have been a carpenter. In 1596 the younger Jacob Keul was paid from the accounts of the Watch and Artillery Master for working with several other carpenters at the ‘stone lodge on the Rhine’ (Koblenz, Landeshauptarchv, MS. 612. III. H. 4, fasc. 5, p. 215). In ...

[Benedetto da Firenze]

(fl 1453; d Bellinzona [now Switzerland], Oct 1, 1479).

Italian architect and military engineer. He was one of the first architects in 15th-century Milan to abandon Gothic forms and to introduce elements of the Florentine Renaissance. Although his activity in the service of the dukes of Milan, Francesco Sforza (see Sforza family, §1) and Galeazzo Maria Sforza, is confirmed by numerous documents, very few buildings survive that can be ascribed to Ferrini. In 1461, he was sent to Venice to work on the palace bought by Francesco Sforza, but the attribution to Ferrini of the façade fragment of the so-called Ca’ del Duca at Venice can no longer be sustained. His name has, however, been more securely linked with parts of Milan Castle, which he converted (1472–6) into a residence equipped for the requirements of a Renaissance prince. There, he worked on the Corte Ducale with its extensive apartments, and he designed a courtyard arcade with flanking pilasters in the Florentine manner. He was responsible for planning the entire decoration of the Cappella Ducale, and he worked on the Rocchetta, which was used as the state treasury....

Architectural term referring to the sinuous, flickering patterns found in French tracery from the 14th century to the early 16th. By extension, it has come to designate French Late Gothic architecture in general, thus corresponding to English Perpendicular and German Spätgotik (‘Late Gothic’) or Sondergotik. The term appears to have come into general usage in the 19th century in the writings of Jules Michelet and Louis Gonse, among others.

The sinuous lines of Flamboyant may have resulted automatically from the juxtaposition of geometric forms, seen, for example, in the mid-13th-century transept rose windows of Notre-Dame, Paris, and in the choir of St Urbain, Troyes, or they may be derived from Islamic architectural motifs. Flamboyant tracery patterns are formed of three basic shapes, which began to appear in the second half of the 13th century: the tightly pointed ogee arch, the tadpole-shaped mouchette, and the leaf-shaped soufflet. Unlike geometric tracery, the arcs of these motifs were struck from multiple centres, placed outside as well as inside the unit. The use of such rigorously conceived window tracery in France was delayed until the end of the 14th century (e.g. in the western nave chapels of ...