7. Matthias Zündt
(ca. 1498-1572)
The Arrest of the Nuremberg Patrician Hieronymus Baumgärtner by the Knight Albrecht von Rosenberg

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Zundt: Arrest of Baumgartner

The Arrest of the Nuremberg Patrician Hieronymus Baumgärtner by the Knight Albrecht von Rosenberg

Etching on iron, ca. 1565, 177 x 259 mm., Passavant IV-198-25. Very fine impression of this very rare print on laid paper with a town gate watermark, with small margins all around; slight trace of a vertical center crease visible only verso. Who was Baumgärtner (or Paumgärtner) and why was he arrested? The answer lies somewhere in the history of the Catholic/Protestant struggles in the German states in the sixteenth century. Baumgärtner was ostensibly taken on his return from the ill-fated second Diet of Speyer in 1529, but whether he was there as a representative of the Lutherans of Nuremberg or as a supporter of the Catholic Emperor Charles V is unknown. Rosenberg, presumably, was of the opposite camp. Adding to the mystery is why such an image should be created 35 years after the event (if the generally accepted dating is correct). And totally complicating the whole matter is that the plate later fell into the hands of a publisher who added the monogram of Augustin Hirschvogel and the false date 1552 (this impression is before that happened). Art dealers get around the conundrum by pointing to the exquisite early landscape, showing the towns of Sinsheim and Wimpen, and the masterly etching technique.