29. Jacob Binck
(ca. 1500-1569):

Genius on a Sea Monster

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Binck , Genius on a Sea Monster

Genius on a Sea Monster

Engraving, 40 x 30 mm. Bartsch 47, Hollstein 105, ex collection: Friedrich August II of Saxony (Lugt 971). Fine impression on laid paper, trimmed on the platemark but showing the borderline all around. The work is a reverse copy of a print by H. S. Beham, not at all an unusual thing as some eighty of Binck's ca. 240 prints were after works by Schongauer, Dürer, the Behams and others. The reason? Binck worked in Cologne and traveled extensively in northern Europe, including Scandinavia, all far from Nuremberg. But the same images that could find a market in southern Germany might also find a market elsewhere and so Binck, who was as skilled as most of his Little Master colleagues, copied them and supplied that market. He was far from alone in that kind of entrepreneurship.