Many of the earlier wood engravings, too, suffer in the same way from the imperfection of the cutting, inferior workmen having been employed to reproduce them, just as in the case of the book illustrations of Ambrosius Holbein, who was employed by Froben quite as often as his brother Hans, and whose work also suffered from inadequate translation. It thus becomes difficult, in the case of several unsigned prints, to decide which of the two young men was the designer of them. In these earlier efforts, too, Hans had not reached to that pitch of excellence in adapting his design to the requirements of the wood-cutters to which he attained some years later, when he was working in conjunction with Lützelburger, nor had his powers of draughtsmanship and composition yet found their complete expression. Having at length met with an engraver who could do full justice to his ideas, and one who was as great a master in one branch of art as he himself was in another, Holbein’s genius for decorative design matured rapidly, so that the two men between them produced works in this field which have never been surpassed. They worked together from the autumn of 1522 until Lützelburger’s death and Holbein’s departure from Basel in 1526. Modern researches have failed to glean much information about the life and career of Lützelburger. On a tablet below a wood engraving of his cutting representing a battle between peasants and naked men in a fir wood in Utopia, designed by the unknown Augsburg master N.H., he signs himself “HANNS. LEVCZELLBVRGER. FVRMSCHNIDER. 1.5.2.2.” At a later date, on the proofs of Holbein’s “Dance of Death” alphabet, he calls himself “Hanns Lützelburger, furmschneider, genant Franck,” that is, “Hans Lützelburger, wood-engraver, called Franck.” This is printed in movable type, the first H being an ornamented Roman capital, while the other letters of the name are in the German character. He was one of the group of wood-engravers who were working at Augsburg about 1516-19, under the direction of Jost de Negker, on the blocks for the Emperor Maximilian, and his name is written or his monogram cut upon the back of nine of the “Triumph” blocks, still preserved at Vienna, and he also cut nine of the series of “Saints connected with the House of Habsburg” in 1516-17. All available evidence indicates that the “Battle of Naked Men” was engraved in Augsburg. In the same year, 1522, Lützelburger cut an alphabet for the printer Schöffer at Maintz, of which the letter L is signed “H.L.F.,” and the same date and initials occur on two specimen ornamental alphabets evidently designed by the same unknown artist.[436] Whether he was residing at Maintz at the time is uncertain, but by the autumn of 1522 Lützelburger had moved to Basel, and was at work on Adam Petri’s folio New Testament. There he remained until his death in the summer of 1526, in constant collaboration with Holbein, engraving, among