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(1) Niklaus Manuel Deutsch I

(b Berne, ?1484; d Berne, 28 April 1530). Painter, draughtsman, designer, writer and politician. Some early designs in pen and wash—for example one of c. 1508 featuring the Manuel arms (Paris, Louvre)—suggest that he may have trained in a glass-painter’s workshop. The design’s motif, composition and technique correspond closely with the contemporary glass panels in the church of Kirchberg, near Burgdorf, two of which bear his monogram. It is assumed that he was self-taught as a painter, although the wings of a St Anne altarpiece (Berne, Dominikanerkirche) reflect knowledge of the work of Hans Fries and of Dürer’s Life of the Virgin woodcuts. The style, technique and subject-matter of Manuel’s early drawings show an awareness also of Hans Burgkmair, Hans Baldung and Urs Graf. Probably he and Graf met personally while both were participating in the Italian campaigns as mercenaries. Their vivid, unorthodox renditions of soldiers, women and death in various graphic media are quite similar around 1513, although Manuel’s interpretations, such as Allegory on Man’s Mortality, are more allegorical (see fig. 1).

Part of the Deutsch family

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  Reproduced by kind permission of Macmillan Publishers Limited, publishers of The Grove Dictionary of Art.
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