Marcus Curtius leaping into a Fiery Chasm

Erhard Schon

Summary

A reproduction produced by the Vasari Society of a drawing by Erhard Schön. The drawing is on a dark brown background, and shows a man, Marcus Curtius, riding a horse into a fire. The horse's front legs are raised and its head is thrown back, and the man's arm is in the air and his cape is flying, adding to the drama. The background is comprised of long curved lines. Highlights are picked out in white. The drawing is dated 1541 at the bottom and signed with the artist's mark. Text from the accompanying booklet produced by the Vasari Society: "No. 21 ERHARD SCHÖN (Worked at Nuremberg from 151; d. 1542) MARCUS CURTIUS LEAPING INTO THE FIERY CHASM Collection of Campell Dodgson, Esq. Drawn with the pen and brush in Indian ink on a dark brown prepared ground, and heightened with white. Dated 1541 and signed with the artist's mark, two lines forming an acute angle. 15.3 x 10 cm. (6 x 3 7/8 in.). Drawings in pen-and-ink on white paper by this prolific illustrator of Dürer's school are not uncommon, though few have yet been published. The chief collections of them are at Berlin and Cologne; twelve examples in the Cologne Museum, dated for the most part 1536, were published by Dr. A. Lindner in 1907. But drawings by Schön in this more elaborate technique are extremely rare, and the present example, though cut rather close, may claim, by its high finish and otherwise perfect preservation, to rank as a capital example of his handiwork. A 'Judith', on a red ground, dated 1537, was found by Dr. E. Bock among the anonymous German drawings in the Louvre (No. 18,918), and I have seen in the house of Baron Edmond de Rothschild (framed) a 'Standard-bearer', dated 1540, in a similar technique to the present example and with the same signature, but on a light green ground (pen and ink, heightened with white, highly finished; 14.3 x 10.3 cm.). I know no other specimens of drawing in chiaroscuro by this artist. Those who are familiar with Schön's woodcuts will see that the features of M. Curtius are typical of his later style, and close analogies to the flames and to the body of the horse will be found among the drawings at Cologne, and the woodcuts of his work on proportion respectively. The angle occurs as a signature on both drawings and woodcuts of the artist's latter years either alone, or in conjunction with the monogram E S. With the monogram it is found on the title-page of Schön's work on proportion and drawing for the use of artists, first issued in 1538, and also on the unique woodcut of a portico, drawn in perspective, in the British Museum (Dodgson, Catalogue I, p. 438, No. 37). In connexion with the subject of this drawing, it is interesting to note that Schön was occupied just at this time with the proportions of the horse, for five new woodcuts, illustrating that subject, were added to the third edition of his Underweisung der Proportion, which appeared in 1542. Schön's first wife died in 1540; he married again in 1541, but died in the following year. [For the date of Schön's death, which occurred, according to the older books of reference, after 1550, see H. Boesch in Mitteilungen aus dem germanischen Nationalmuseum, ii. 70. The authority for 1542 is the Totengeläutbuch of St. Sebald.] C. D."