Barthel Beham Ornamental Panel with putto stepping over banderoles ca. 1520-40 engraving British Museum |
Barthel Beham Ornamental Panel with helmeted winged genii flanking urn ca. 1520-40 engraving British Museum |
Barthel Beham Ornamental panel with putti flanking half-length faun ca. 1520-40 engraving British Museum |
Barthel Beham Ornamental panel with half-length female figures supporting centerpiece ca. 1520-40 engraving British Museum |
Barthel Beham Ornamental Frieze with Abduction of Helen ca. 1520-40 engraving British Museum |
"Barthel Beham (1502-1540) – Painter, engraver and designer of woodcuts. He may have been trained in the studio of his elder brother Sebald. Together with Sebald and Georg Pencz, he was banished in January 1525 from Nuremberg for advocating radical religious views. Although they were permitted to return the following September, Barthel, after further difficulties with the city fathers, finally left Nuremberg, moving to Munich in 1526. From this point in his career he concentrated more on paintings and produced fewer engravings. At first he worked for Wolfgang Muelich and then for the dukes of Bavaria, who were among the most fervent Catholic princes of the Empire. . . . According to the contemporary biographer Johann Neurdörfer, the duke held Barthel's work in high esteem and paid his expenses for a journey to Italy for the sake of 'experience and art' – where he died in 1540. Although less productive than his brother Sebald, Barthel was a more innovative engraver, and many of his designs were copied or adapted by Sebald, who probably inherited his stock of plates after his death. Barthel's interest in small, unconventional figure compositions and Italianate designs of secular subject-matter such as small ornamental prints with putti, introduced any number of novel aspects to the repertoire of German printmakers."
– curator's notes from the British Museum
Barthel Beham Ornamental Frieze with half-length female figure holding grotesque roosters by the tails ca. 1520-40 engraving British Museum |
Barthel Beham Ornamental Frieze with eagle flanked by putti in tendril loops ca. 1520-40 engraving British Museum |
Barthel Beham Ornamental Frieze with seahorse and four putti ca. 1520-40 engraving British Museum |
Barthel Beham Child with leaf ornament ca. 1526 engraving British Museum |
Barthel Beham Ornamental Roundel with boy playing with dog 1525 engraving British Museum |
Barthel Beham Battle of Titus Gracchus ca. 1528 engraving British Museum |
Barthel Beham Battle of eighteen nude men 1528 engraving British Museum |
Barthel Beham Armorial Bookplate with parrot on lily for Nuremberg humanist, Hieronymus Baumgärtner 1530 engraving British Museum |
Barthel Beham Coat of arms with cockerel 1530s engraving British Museum |