The right leg, the left arm and hand resting on the hip, the poise of the head and the style of dress are all in the same manner. Nothing, again, is more characteristic of an artist than his treatment of hands. And with those expressive hands of the Madonna we may confidently compare the hands of the woman who is behind the body of Christ or the hands of Joseph in the Pietà of 1522, or the hands of St. John in the Sebaldusgrab, or of the female figure on the inkstand of 1525. Vischer-like also is the pure, refined expression and type of face, which recalls on the one hand the yearning gaze of the aforesaid figure, and the soulful look of Eurydice on the other. But enough has been said. Peter Vischer the younger was, we think, capable of producing such a work of art as the Madonna, and of no one else whose work we know can we say as much. Yet such a masterpiece is not thrown off by an unpractised hand. There is good reason, then, for accepting the theory suggested by the remarks of Herr von Bezold[7] and crediting our craftsman with the glory of this great work. In the next chapter we shall deal with some minor, undisputed works of his, a careful study of which will certainly, in our opinion, not tend to invalidate the claim now advanced on his behalf. Footnote 7: “Anzeiger des Germanischen Nationalmuseums.” No. 2. Nuremberg, 1896. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER VII THE MINOR WORKS OF PETER VISCHER THE YOUNGER SOME time during the year which followed the completion of the Eissen Monument, Cardinal Albrecht von Brandenburg, Archbishop of Magdeburg and Mainz, it is recorded, sent to the old bronze-founder of Nuremberg requesting him to let his son come to him to confer about certain orders. Whether the young Peter went or not we do not know, nor is it certain whether it was his tomb which the Cardinal had previously ordered, or the great State Seal of the Archbishop, which is with some probability ascribed to this craftsman, that was in debate. The tomb-plate of the Cardinal was finished by 1525, and is now in the Parish Church of Aschaffenburg, though it is at Mainz that the Cardinal was buried. For the fashion in tombs was changing, and, in order to be in the fashion, the Cardinal subsequently ordered a new tomb of red marble beneath which he now lies in the Cathedral of Mainz. “And I shall fill my slab of basalt there, And ’neath my tabernacle take my rest, With those nine columns round me, two and two, The odd one at my feet where Anselm stands; Peach-blossom marble all, the rare, the ripe As fresh-poured red wine of a mighty pulse.... True peach, Rosy and flawless.”