Book Illustrations
His best known book illustrations in his own time were 135 woodcuts from Sebastian Brant's 1502 edition of Virgil's Aeneid, "perhaps the most influential book illustrations ever produced in Europe", though the attribution to him is not universally agreed. This was the first printed Virgil with illustrations. These crowded compositions retain many Gothic features, compared for example with Botticelli's rather earlier painted illustrations to Dante. They were copied in many other book editions and about thirty years later in a famous series of Limoges enamel plaques by the "Master of the Aeneid Series", one of many such derivative works.
Better-known today are the often rather gruesome woodcuts for Hans von Gersdorff's (1455–1529) Feldtbuch der Wundartzney (literally "Field-book of the Wound-doctor", 1517, 1st edn.), a manual for the military surgeon (see Commons). These have sometimes been coloured by hand, but are printed in black and white. His frontispiece for the 1526 edition, produced when he was probably in his forties, is the last known trace of him. He is not to be confused with Hans Weiditz, another Strasbourg woodcut artist of the period.
Read more about this topic: Hans Wechtlin
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