DENZEL, Daniel.

An intriguing and attractive collection of drawings, mostly copied from late C16th and early C17th German prints and artists’ books, but apparently containing original designs. The Denzels were town painters in Ulm, according to Othmar Metzger (‘Die Ulmer Stadtmaler (1495-1631)’ in Ulm und Oberschwaben, 35 (1958), pp. 181-200). Painters in the Early Modern period were, like most craftsmen, required to join city guilds, which could lead to appointments as the official city painter (stadtmaler). The oath sworn by the Ulm city painter has survived, including prices for basic commissions. This did not always lead to preferential treatment: in Ulm the town painter would be overlooked for commissions if other artists were deemed to be more capable, while some were removed for presenting inflated invoices and other excessive charges (Danica Brenner, Süddeutsche stadtmaler im 16. und 17. jahrhundert’ in The Artist Between Court and City, 1300-1600 (Petersburg: 2017), pp. 202-206).

Daniel Denzel was the younger brother of Hans who died in 1625; after the dismissal of the town painter called Schaler around 1628, Daniel assumed the position until his death in 1631. Very few works by the Denzels are known and none have been attributed to Daniel, possibly because of his very brief tenure. In 1616 Denzel’s brothers Johann and Melchior published a book advertising their invention of a new measuring instrument, the schrägmass, which was a kind of carpenter’s square, and which may be the triangular instrument depicted facing the design of David and Goliath in this volume. This latter is by far the most accomplished and finished drawing in the book. We have been unable to identify the source this image and it is possible that it may be an original design, possibly even intended for a mural in the Ulm Schwörhaus, which was erected between 1612-18.

The remaining designs are copied from books and include geometric sketches, portraits and studies of facial portraits, architectural designs, animal studies and landscapes evidently copied from engravings, including a late-C16th depiction of the Ottoman siege of Nicosia by Balthasar Jenichen (d.1599). They are of variable quality and it is possible that some are in a different hand, possibly that of a student. The geometrical studies, proportional studies of faces and horses, portraits of bearded men, and winged cherub are copied from an instructional drawing book by the German artist Sebald Beham (1500-50), Warhafftige Beschreibung aller fürnemen Künsten, of which we have found an edition containing all these designs published in Frankfurt in 1605. The images of the zweihander and soldier with halberd are copied from Lucas Kilian’s Newes Soldaten Büchlein, printed in Augsburg in 1609. The depiction of Faith is from Jost Amman’s series of the virtues, published in his Kusnstbüchlin in Frankfurt in 1599. These are obviously studies in draughtsmanship and proportion, either drawn within pencil grids or appended with scales to which notes regarding measurements have been added in German. The landscape scenes, like the map of Nicosia, are more ambitious copies, one from a view by Paulus Bril (1554-1626), from his series of views of the Coast of Campania, published 1590, the other unidentified.