Master of The Housebook - Erhard Reuwich?

Erhard Reuwich?

It was first suggested in 1937 that he should be identified as Erhard Reuwich of Utrecht, an artist and (or) printer working in Mainz, who designed and signed an influential 5-foot-long (1.5 m) woodcut panoramic view of Venice made following a visit in 1483 or 1484 during a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Reuwich printed the account in Latin of the trip, the Sanctae Peregrinationes by Bernhard von Breydenbach of 1486, in which the woodcut was the first ever fold-out plate. The design was later adapted by Michael Wolgemut for the Nuremberg Chronicle. Reuwich was taken as an artist in the entourage of Breydenbach, a wealthy canon of Mainz Cathedral. The book also contained panoramas of six other cities, including Jerusalem, studies of Near Eastern costume, and an exotic alphabet - the first in print. It was a bestseller, reprinted thirteen times over the next three decades, including editions printed in France and Spain, for which the illustration blocks were shipped out to the local printers.

In 1485 Reuwich drew some plants for the woodcuts in a herbal also published in Mainz. His identification with the Housebook Master has not been generally accepted, though A. Hyatt Mayor supported it; other suggestions have also been made. The trend of scholarly opinion has moved against the identification in more recent works. The design of the woodcuts for a 1473 edition of the Speculum Humanae Salvationis has been attributed to the Housebook Master.