Prints and Miniatures Made by Donat Hübschmann in Vienna for Clients from Hungary

Gulyás, Borbála (2023) Prints and Miniatures Made by Donat Hübschmann in Vienna for Clients from Hungary. ACTA HISTORIAE ARTIUM ACADEMIAE SCIENTIARUM HUNGARICAE, 64 (1). pp. 125-150. ISSN 0001-5830

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Abstract

Originating from Leipzig and active in Vienna, the printmaker and painter Donat Hübschmann (†1583) had clients from Hungary who were close to the joint Hungarian and Bohemian royal and imperial court in Vienna of the composite Habsburg Monarchy, to which the Kingdom of Hungary belonged. Miklós Oláh (Nicolaus Olahus), humanist prelate and Archbishop of Esztergom, and head of the Hungarian Court Chancellery based in Vienna, commissioned him to make a copy of his etched portrait. János Zsámboky (Johannes Sambucus), who entered court service as a humanist, ordered two works from him. In 1564–65 Zsámboky had an illustrated broadsheet made to commemorate the coronation in Pozsony (now Bratislava, Slovakia) as King of Hungary of Archduke Maximilian II of Habsburg in 1563, which was decorated with a woodcut by Donat Hübschmann: a veduta of Pozsony. Further, in 1566 he assigned Donat Hübschmann to produce a copy of the earliest surviving printed map of Hungary (Lazarus Secretarius, Tabula Hungariae, 1528). Other Hungarian-related works can be found among the master’s prints, such as a woodcut portrait of Hans Francolin the Younger, Hungarian Herald of Ferdinand I. It is likely that Donat Hübschmann was also responsible for the painted decoration on five letters patent,which were commissioned by Hungarian noblemen and issued by the Hungarian Court Chancellery in Vienna. In every case,the miniature coats of arms were signed with the monogram “DH”. The calligraphic decoration of these can be attributed to the noted calligrapher György (George) Bocskay and his workshop.

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