[Illustration: MARTIN SCHONGAUER. VIRGIN SEATED IN A COURTYARD Size of the original engraving, 6¾ × 4⅞ inches In the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston] [Illustration: MARTIN SCHONGAUER. ANGEL OF THE ANNUNCIATION Size of the original engraving, 6⅝ × 4½ inches In the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston] The type of the Redeemer, which Schongauer has made so peculiarly his own, is nowhere seen to better advantage than in the two beautiful plates of the _Baptism of Christ_ and _Christ Appearing to the Magdalen_. Max Geisberg acclaims the last-named as Schongauer’s most beautiful engraving. “Here, the contents of the composition have received an embodiment, the fervor, depth, and delicacy of which have never been surpassed in art.”[1] It can, however, share this high praise with the _Virgin Seated in a Courtyard_ and the _Angel of the Annunciation_. For sheer beauty, these plates remain to this day not only unsurpassed, but unequalled. What quietude and restraint there is in the _Virgin Seated in a Courtyard_, the wall back of her discreetly bare, the grass indicated by a few small but significant strokes, while the branches of one little, leafless tree form an exquisite pattern against the untouched sky! By contrast one of Dürer’s technical masterpieces--the _Virgin Seated by a City Wall_--seems overworked and overloaded with needless accessories. [1] Martin Schongauer. By Dr. Max Geisberg. The Print-Collector’s Quarterly. Vol. IV. April, 1914. p. 128. The _Angel of the Annunciation_ marks the culmination of Schongauer’s art and belongs to his most mature period. Everything not absolutely necessary for a clear presentation has been eliminated. A slight shadow upon the ground gives solidity to the figure. All else is blank. The art of simplification can hardly go further, and were one to be restricted to the choice of a single print by any of Dürer’s predecessors, one might wisely select the _Angel of the Annunciation_. That Schongauer was equally interested in things mundane is convincingly proved by _Peasants Going to Market_, _Goldsmith’s Apprentices Fighting_, or _The Miller_. How well he has differentiated between the mother-ass, filled with maternal solicitude, and the woolly, stocky, and somewhat foolish little donkey which follows, while the miller with upraised staff urges her onward. The _Crozier_ and the _Censer_ furnish unmistakable proof, were such needed, that as a goldsmith-designer, no less than as an engraver, Schongauer is entitled to the loftiest place in German art. They are masterpieces, alike in invention and in execution. His influence was not confined to his contemporaries, but can be traced in many ways, and in many media, long after his death. His School, however, produced no engraver worthy, for a moment, of comparison with him. [Illustration: MARTIN SCHONGAUER. THE MILLER Size of the original engraving, 3½ × 4⅞ inches In the Albertina, Vienna]