Martin Schongauer

Nothing is known about Schongauer's apprenticeship, but as the son of a goldsmith he was probably trained in his father's workshop in Colmar. In 1465 the Leipzig University register lists him as a student. In that his style is indebted to early Netherlandish art, especially that of Rogier van der Weyden, it is assumed that in the waning 1460s he spent time in the Burgundian Netherlands. By the beginning of the 1470s Schongauer was again active in Colmar. In 1489 he was listed as a burgher in Breisach, where he worked on wall paintings of the Last Judgement in the west wing of the cathedral. Little of Schongauer's painting survives ('Madonna in the Rose Garden', St Martin in Colmar). It was his 115-odd engravings that had the greatest influence. In terms of graphic technique and design, they set new standards in their depiction of nature and their painterly effect, and paved the way for the graphic work of Dürer.