You will all remember how John Evelyn, writing to Samuel Pepys, advised him to collect engraved portraits--since, in his own words, “Some are so well done to the life, that they may stand comparison with the best paintings.” He then adds: “This were a cheaper, and so much a more useful, curiosity, as they seldom are without their names, ages and eulogies of the persons whose portraits they represent. I say you will be exceedingly pleased to contemplate the effigies of those who have made such a noise and bustle in the world; either by their madness and folly; or a more conspicuous figure, by their wit and learning. They will greatly refresh you in your study and by your fireside, when you are many years returned.” We know by his “Diary” that Pepys became an enthusiastic collector and that he went over to Paris to buy many of Robert Nanteuil’s engraved portraits--at a later date commissioning his wife to secure for him many more, which he strongly desired. From the time of Evelyn and Pepys in England, and that prince of print-collectors in France, the Abbé de Marolles--who in 1666 could boast of possessing over 123,000 prints, “and all the portraits extant”--portraits have had, for the student, a peculiar fascination, and it may be interesting to consider briefly the work of some six or eight of the acknowledged masters of the art. Aside from two unimportant plates by the Master of the Amsterdam Cabinet, which may, or may not, be portraits, the earliest engraver to address himself to portraiture, pure and simple, is the anonymous German master with the monogram =W caduceus B=. So far as we know, he executed four plates only (c. 1480-1485). In them the characterization is strong, the drawing clear and vigorous. The artist’s technique may have owed something to Martin Schongauer, but it is singularly lacking in the refinement and balance which mark the work of that engraver. DANIEL HOPFER, who, in 1493, was already working in Augsburg, has left us an etching, which certainly cannot be later than 1504, and may have been executed five, or even ten, years earlier. It is a portrait of _Kunz von der Rosen_, the Jester-Adviser of the Emperor Maximilian I. The etching is upon iron, and the quality of the line is well adapted to the rugged character of the personage. This plate was copied, in reverse, with some modifications, by an anonymous North Italian engraver and reappears as _Gonsalvo of Cordova_, who was in Italy, in command of the army of Ferdinand V of Castile, between 1494 and 1504, when Ferdinand’s jealousy caused him to be superseded in the Vice Royalty of Naples. [Illustration: MASTER =W caduceus B=. HEAD OF A YOUNG WOMAN Size of the original engraving, 4¾ × 3⅜ inches In the Royal Print Room, Berlin] [Illustration: ALBRECHT DÜRER. ALBERT OF BRANDENBURG Size of the original engraving, 5¾ × 3⅞ inches In the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston]