The figure and head of Joseph of Arimathea are nobly beautiful, and, like the drapery, remind us of the St. Peter on the Sebaldusgrab. His outstretched hands are eloquent of sorrow and, in common with those of the women who kneel behind their Master, they speak to a study of Italian art and of the drawings of Leonardo da Vinci. [Illustration: STEIN PHOTO.] [ST. ÆGIDIUS CHURCH, NÜRNBERG 17. BEWEINUNG CHRISTI (Eissen Memorial)] The Christ in this monument resembles in the treatment of the eyes, and the hair and in the moulding of the head that of the Tucher memorial of the previous year. The body is foreshortened, and the foreshortening cannot be termed altogether successful. But successful to an extraordinary degree is the spiritual, sympathetic expression of the countenance, and indicative of a poet’s sympathy with sorrow, and his power of showing it, is that down-hanging arm, masterly executed in strong relief. The young Peter Vischer had known much sorrow, and was acquainted with grief beyond his years. The bereavements of his father, the loss of his brother’s wife, and afterwards of his brother Hermann himself, must have touched his poet’s heart and deepened his powers of sympathetic imagination. The strong stirring of religious emotion which was at this time abroad in the land would tend still further to chasten the exuberant joyousness of his youthful spirit, and to bring him into touch with the more serious aspects of life. Neudörffer has recorded for us his love of the poetical side of life; his own Aquarelle on the _Reformation_ proves the seriousness of his interest in the great religious question of the day, and the evidence of the development of his powers in his own undoubted works of art is potent to demonstrate his enthusiasm for learning. Remembering these facts let us compare for a moment with the sisters of Lazarus in the Tucher memorial, that superb work of art in the Germanic Museum at Nuremberg, which is known as the “Praying Madonna.” (Ill. 18.) [Illustration: [MUSEUM, NÜRNBERG 18. THE NUREMBERG MADONNA]