Martin Schongauer

Born in Colmar around 1450, Martin Schongauer was a German painter and sculptor of the late Middle Ages. The son of a orfèvre, he will have bathed in the artistic atmosphere of his workshop and learned the mastery of the engraving technique.Schongauer is best known for his work as an engraver, with over a hundred engravings attributed to him that inspired a whole generation of artists in Europe. Religious subjects predominate in these works. One of his œuvres majeures, the Retable des Dominicains, is in the Musée Unterlinden, which is located in his home town. Another of the painter's masterpieces, La Vierge au buisson de roses can be admired in the church of the Dominicans in Colmar, where the painting is full of grace and harmony. He was nicknamed Le Beau Martin, not only for the quality and finish of his work but also for his surname. A sandstone statue by Auguste Bartholdi of Martin Schongauer can be admired in Colmar. You can contemplate the 4 other allacute;goric statuettes representing Orfèvrerie, Gravure, Peinture and Étude, which made up the initial work at the musmusée Bartholdi de Colmar. Martin Schongauer died of the plague in Breisach in 1491.

Possible copy of a lost portrait of Martin Schöngauer, dating from 1483. Source of this portrait : Allposters