The German single-leaf woodcut, 1500-1550

This catalogue is based on the work of Max Geisberg, Der deutsche Einblatt Holzschnitt in der ersten Hälfte des 16. Jahrhunderts (The German Single-Issued Woodcuts of the First Half of the Sixteenth Century), Munich, 1924-1930. Geisberg was the first to assemble a comprehensive collection of the woodcuts of that period. He issued them in forty-three large portfolios, arranged according to repositories. A great number of woodcuts omitted by Geisberg, or unknown to him, have been added. These volumes are not intended to be a catalogue raisonné, but to serve primarily as a pictorial catalogue in a practical format of the singly-issued woodcuts of the first half of the sixteenth century in Germany, as opposed to book illustrations. But in a sense they are more than that. These woodcuts were produced for the general public, unlike the illustrations for books, and aptly reflected the mores of the age. The survival of the prints is evidence of their popularity and wide distribution. Their variety and even occasional coarseness afford an unusual opportunity to view them not merely as an art form, but as an extraordinarily broad sampling of the culture of the period. - Introductory note.