A less doubtful example of his painstaking craftsmanship is to be found in the Apollo, of which an illustration is given here. (Ill. 28.) It stands now in the Court of the Rathaus at Nuremberg, and serves as a fountain-piece. Hans has based the construction of his bronze upon an engraving by Jacopo de’ Barbari. But he has not hesitated to introduce several alterations from the original designs. Vischer’s Apollo has the right hand, which is about to let the arrow fly from the string, more energetically drawn back, and the elbow-joint is set further back. In Barbari’s drawing Apollo is represented as stretching the bow and looking down, although he is pointing the arrow upwards. It was a distinct improvement when Hans made the Far-darter’s gaze to follow the direction of the arrow’s flight. Amongst other minor alterations he has represented the God, probably out of consideration for the material in which he was working, with short hair in place of the locks streaming in the wind found in Barbari’s design. The obvious fault of the piece—a fault which proves entirely ruinous to its success as a work of art—is that upon the slim, attenuated Italian figure, excessively coarse and heavy hands and feet have been grafted. And the arms are grossly exaggerated in length. The playing children and sporting dolphins on the base of the fountain are but crude adaptations of the stock-in-trade with which the labours of Peter and Hermann had supplied the paternal foundry. The tale of the works of Hans Vischer is told, and so far as we can judge there is no reason to claim for him a higher position than that of a craftsman who conscientiously transmitted into bronze the designs and inspirations of others. The fall of the House of Vischer was, in fact, very close at hand. It may be dated in its final realization soon after the year 1549, for it was then that Hans Vischer determined to leave his native town and to settle in Eichstädt. And this is the last we hear of him in the Nuremberg records. The Council of Nuremberg, we are told, did indeed endeavour, through the mediation of the Guild of Coppersmiths, to induce, if not to compel, him to remain at home. But he persisted in his determination to depart. He was ready even to pay the price of binding himself not to practise his craft abroad. He was to accept no commission for a bronze-work, such were the terms laid down, without the knowledge and the consent of the Council, and if he then succeeded in obtaining their sanction to undertake it, he was to execute the whole of the casting, from beginning to end, at Nuremberg. His readiness to comply with these conditions would seem to indicate that neither at home nor abroad did he any longer have hopes of success in his craft. The bronze industry, apparently, had gone from bad to worse: the fashion for bronze tombs and memorials had passed, and commissions no longer poured in upon the Vischer Foundry as they had done in the palmy days of Maximilian.