In the years before 1600, Augsburg had little artistic influence. [1] With the exception of Elias Holl, municipal architect behind Augsburg's redevelopment, none of the leading artists working in the city between 1560 and 1600 were actually born there. For their fountains and bronzes, the city called upon Hubert Gerhard and Adriaen de Vries, two Netherlandish artists who had already made their mark in the service of the Fugger patrician family and the Dukes of Bavaria, and the Weilheim artist Hans Reichle. Apart from those commissioned by the city fathers, there were other leading artists working in Augsburg as portraitists, altar painters and fresco painters for the Fugger family and other patricians, which was often a source of contention with the guild and the city council. Hans von Aachen, Friedrich Sustris, Christoph Schwarz, Peter Candid, Georg Pecham, Giulio Licinio [2] and others, none of them Augsburg citizens, had come to Augsburg solely for the purpose of fulfilling specific contracts. The churches, too, were important patrons, most notably the Jesuits, who commissioned works for their collegiate church of St. Salvator, built from 1581 onwards with the generous support of the Fugger family, calling upon many of the same artists who had been involved in decorating the church of SS Ulrich and Afra, which was also completed towards the end of the century. The three huge apsidal altars were created by Hans Degler and Elias Greither, both from Weilheim.

Given the enormous volume of work commissioned by the municipality, wealthy families and the church over such a long period, and considering the dearth of local talent, it is hardly surprising to find an influx of artists, commissioned or not. [3]

Those who came to Augsburg and, more important still, settled there, included Joseph Heintz the Elder (1598), Johann Freyberger (1599/1604), Matthias Kager (1603), Johann Rottenhammer and Hieronymus von Kessel (1606), Johann König (1614), Matthäus Gundelach (1615/17) und Christian Steinmüller (1615/16). Together with the more modestly talented local artists Anton Mozart, Thomas Maurer and Tobias Bernhart, and the copper engraving families Custos and Kilian, to name but the most important members of this group of artists that played such an important role for Augsburg, they provided a pool of specialists for all manner of paintings, drawings and prints. Joseph Heintz the Elder died in 1609, and some of the others who came to Augsburg stayed only briefly or left few traces there. The portraitist Hieronymus von Kessel, who lived in the house of Markus Fugger from 1606, left the city the following year, returning in 1610, after which there is no further record of him. Christian Steinmüller, who became a master in 1616 and who is documented in the city's fiscal records during the periods 1618-1623 and 1631-1634, left no witness to his art in Augsburg. Yet the city's public, ecclesiastical and private commissions for paintings from miniatures to portraits, panel paintings, altar painting and frescos, from designs for decorative arts to architecture were so fully catered for by a wide range of specialists that no outside artists needed to be called in to Augsburg as they had before 1600.

This fact was to be of enormous significance in terms of Augsburg's reputation and its economy, for the sheer scale of the city's patronage, be it municipal, ecclesiastical or private, was considerable, and the resulting demand for competent painters remained unabated. Indeed, compared to the period before 1600, the number of commissions available increased steadily over the next three decades. Wall paintings [4], as far as the few surviving examples indicate, constituted an important field of artistic employment, and one in which 28-year-old Matthias Kager's move from Munich to Augsburg in 1603 proved particularly auspicious. Although registered only as miniature painter, shortly after settling in the city he was awarded the most prestigious contract in Augsburg when he was commissioned to paint the weavers' guildhall in the city centre in 1605. Soon after completion, the municipal authorities also commissioned him to execute the frescos for the city gates: the Heiliges Kreuztor in 1610 and the Frauentor in 1611. Johann Freyberger's painting for the Barfüssertor in 1610 was probably also based on Kager's designs.

Partly because of their official status and partly due to Karger's business acumen, his works were published as engravings shortly after their completion in 1607 and 1613 by Bernhard Heupold. [5] No such illustrations exist of his frescos for the Neues Rathhaus in 1621 (a contract for which Rottenhammer had also applied) and the Perlachturm in 1616, nor of the equally famous frescos by Johann Rottenhammer at the Hopfersches Haus (1611), the Steinnigersches Haus and the the Tanzhaus, the latter being a public contract. [6] These examples show just how quickly art and artists found a footing in Augsburg. Within the space of less than a generation, painters no longer had to be brought in from outside. Augsburg had become autonomous in this respect.

A similar development can be traced in the field of altar paintings, which blossomed in connection with the nascent church reform of the late 16th century. Again, it was Matthias Kager, since 1611 a member of the Great Council since 1615 the official municipal painter, who received by far the greatest number of commissions. Some idea of the enormous dynamic energies developed by the Catholic church until well into the war years, can be gained from a far from exhaustive list of Kager's commissions for altarpieces in Augsburg churches [7]: a Fallen Angel and a Saint Sebastian for the church of St Michael (both 1605) an Adoration of the Magi (1610) for SS Ulrich and Afra, an Adoration of the Shepherds and another Adoration of the Magi (both 1610) for an unknown location, now held in the Episcopal Ordinariat, a Saint Catherine among female saints (1613-14) for the former Dominican church of St Katharina, a Presentation of the Virgin (1616) for the Catholic church of Heilig Kreuz, a Saint Margaret (c. 1620) for the Catholic church of St Margareth, a Good Shepherd (c. 1625) for St Peter am Perlach, a Coronation of the Virgin (1627) for St Georg, a Saint Maurice before the Virgin (c. 1630, destroyed) for St Moritz, and a Last Judgement (c. 1630) for the Dominican church of St Magdalena.

Another great Catholic painter, Johann Rottenhammer, also received important commissions for altar paintings - at least in his early Augsburg period. It would appear that he originally moved to the city with a view to a major altarpiece commission. As in the case of Matthias Kager, members of the Fugger family seem to have played an important role as patrons commissioning major altar paintings. [8] Although Rottenhammer's early Annunciation (1606-08) for SS Ulrich and Afra was not actually donated by the Fugger family [9], his Adoration of the Trinity for the Catholic church of Heilig Kreuz, which was a Fugger foundation [10] could well be the work mentioned by Rottenhammer in his letter to the valet of the Count of Schaumburg dated 7 December 1606: "allhie zu machen, bin gerufen worden" (to do which I have been called). The lost Ascension (1611) for SS Ulrich and Afra and the Adoration of the Trinity (1614) for the former Franciscan monastery church, now St. Maximilian, are also Fugger commissions. [11] The Protestant painters Anton Mozart, Johann König, Johann Freyberger and Matthäus Gundelach apparently received no commissions from the Catholic churches. Understandable as this may be in the case of Mozart, who always worked in small formats, it is less easily explained in the case of Johann König, who, though renowned for his miniatures and small copperplate engravings, was certainly capable of working in larger formats, as evidenced by his work for the Rathaus. Johann Freyberger may be overlooked in this respect. Although he painted large formats and supplied a fine Feeding of the Five Thousand for St Anna [12], he was so dependent on Karger that the latter understandably received the contracts.

This boycott of Protestant painters in commissioning altarpieces defies comprehension in the case of Matthäus Gundelach, who not only created large paintings of the highest quality, but actually supplied altarpieces for Catholic churches outside Augsburg, including a Coronation of the Virgin (1614) for the former convent church of Haslach and the now lost Annunciation with Saint Francis receiving the Stigmata (c. 1630), also for Haslach. [13] Rottenhammer, a Catholic, also worked for Protestant churches in and around Augsburg, executing three small ceiling paintings for the Protestant church of Heilig Kreuz, now in the apse, formerly elsewhere in the church, and working on the goldsmiths' chapel of St Anna in 1619. [14] Given that this distinction was not taken particularly seriously outside Augsburg - and not even in Augsburg itself once the war ended - the boycott of Protestant painters in pre-war Augsburg may be interpreted as an expression of the Counter-Reformation spirit and the beginnings of the Catholic church's struggle against the Augsburg Confession. Augsburg's Protestant artists nevertheless played a role in the city's rise to become a centre of the arts by producing different works of art for which there was also a high demand.

The high esteem in which Augsburg artists were held as far afield as Munich, itself an important art centre, is reflected in the variety and significance of the commissions received by Gundelach, Kager and Rottenhammer from all over southern Germany and Austria. Around 1616 Gundelach produced ceiling paintings for the armory of the Württemberg Ducal Palace in Stuttgart and an altarpiece for Duke Augustus the Younger of Brunswick in 1621. [15] Kager, who had a well-organized workshop, was nevertheless the more sought-after and more successful artist. He created altarpieces for Hall in Tyrol (1609), Zwiefalten (1614 and 1623f), Eichstätt (1614, 1620), Obermarchtal (1617), Dillingen (1617, 1625), Aldersbach (1618), Oberaltaich (1619), Lauingen (1626), Freising (1626), Landshut (1627) and Ingolstadt (1629), to name but a few of the more important works. [16] Rottenhammer was not only in demand in his specialised field of small copperplate engravings, but also as a fresco and ceiling painter. For example, he and Kager worked together on the Frauenkirche in Munich in 1608. Some time after 1608, he worked for Count Ernst von Schaumburg in Bückeburg, in 1614 for the Bavarian Duke Maximilian I (presumably in the Augustinerkirche in Munich), and in 1622 in the Paulskirche in Munich. In 1623 he competed with Rubens for the Freising Cathedral altarpiece, but failed to win the contract, and shortly before his death he was working on an altar painting commissioned by Empress Eleonora in Vienna, which he did not complete. [17]

Apart from the painters themselves, it was above all the art dealer Philipp Hainhofer who contributed towards the rise of Augsburg as a centre of art. [18] His prolific correspondence with many royal houses and city authorities throughout Europe remains to be published or even analysed in full. His letters discussing all manner of topical subjects and innovations also had the important secondary effect of recommending art and artists, especially from Augsburg workshops. Although Hainhofer was a Protestant, he also keenly followed the work of the Catholic painters Rottenhammer and Kager, reporting on them frequently and discussing their weaknesses and strengths in some detail. His recommendations reflect this. Hainhofer was also interested in genealogies, miniatures, small copperplate engravings, and in the Augsburg art scene as a whole, which he enriched with commissions for interdisciplinary works such as art cabinets, house altars, Wunderkammer etc. which required collaboration between the various guilds. [19] The Protestant painters Anton Mozart, Johann König and Tobias Bernhard also feature prominently in his correspondence. The importance of Hainhofer's role in publicising Augsburg art cannot be overestimated. He reported across all political and religious boundaries on this blossoming centre of art and its outstanding artists and craftsmen in every field, and attracted all manner of commissions to the city.

The first council session in the Neues Rathaus, built from 1615 to a design by Elias Holl, was held on 3 August 1620. [20] It was only then that work began on the interior, continuing until at least 1626. In other words, the most lavish artistic enterprise in Augsburg's entire history was undertaken during the first decade of the war. Apart from the Goldener Saal with its huge wall frescos and its eleven large and twenty-four small canvas ceiling paintings, all by Matthias Kager, and Johann Rottenhammer's large, programmatic painting of The City's Patron Goddess Augusta and River Deities above the north main portal, the painterly fittings of the four royal rooms and official chambers included no fewer than 23 main pictures, some large-format, 36 half figure pictures and an indeterminate number of large panels executed by six different artists. As the Augsburg Rathaus and its interior have already been documented at length and were also the subject of an exhibition in 1985, the theme is presented here only briefly. [21]

Documents pertaining to the interior decoration show that, under the auspices of the official municipal painter Matthias Kager, commissions went solely to Augsburg artists. A certain hierarchy is clearly evident. The Goldener Saal, the heart of the Rathaus, was painted by Kager almost entirely single-handedly, though he did have to adhere to Visierungen (small work drawings or designs) by the Munich court painter Peter Candid based on thematic programmes elaborated by the Munich Jesuit father Matthäus Rader. This was certainly the case where the ceiling paintings are concerned. [22] In this, the most prominent room of Rathaus, the only other artist involved was Johann Rottenhammer. The fittings of the four Fürstenzimmer or princely rooms, each with three large-scale history paintings and six half-figure paintings on the same theme, were allocated to Kager and an unknown painter working on his behalf, then to Johann König and Matthäus Gundelach. For the official chambers in the Oberer Flez situated beneath the Goldener Saal, Kager and König were also commissioned, together with Johann Feyberger and Thomas Maurer, neither of whom had worked on the main floor. Only two important pictures from the original interior have been lost. The iconographic programme is, for the most part, easy to follow, particularly in the official chambers and the Goldener Saal. By contrast, the programmes of the four princely rooms seem to be consistent within themselves, but not related. [23]

The four allegories of Counsel, Architecture, Finance and Justice by Johann Freyberger in the public room of the Oberer Flez indicated to visitors capable of reading them the functions of the rooms behind them. These four images, painted by Freyberger to designs by Kager [24] were also conceived by Matthäus Rader with extraordinary complexity, teeming with Greek and Latin inscriptions, and were clearly intended to impress. The offices facing the front of the Rathaus, to the west, evidently regarded as more important, the southern court chamber and the northern council chamber take up as much floor space as the princely rooms above, and were also fitted with large history paintings and half-figure paintings by the superior artists Kager and König. In both these rooms, a monumental Last Judgement reflects the claim to absolute justice, as do the two biblical themes The Death of Jezebel (council chamber, now lost) and Ananias and Saphira (court chamber) as well as the half-figures of the Lawmakers (council chamber) and the Allegories of Justice (court chamber). [25] The offices in the eastern part of the Oberer Flez were divided into two narrow rectangles, with the architectural chamber on the northern side and the fiscal chamber with anteroom on the south side. The decoration was correspondingly more modest. There are no half-figure paintings here, and, instead of the history paintings, panels bearing the coats of arms of the gentlemen responsible for the offices are predominant. These, and the two allegories on "Teuere und Wohlfeile Zeit" (dear and precious time), undoubtedly the least satisfactory paintings of the entire Rathaus, were the work of Thomas Maurer. [26] Only the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit (unfortunately lost) which was hung, remarkably enough, in the anteroom to the fiscal chamber, was commissioned from the renowned painter Johann König for this part of the Rathaus.

Whereas the function of the offices was clearly defined and illustrated accordingly, the function of the so-called Fürstenzimmer is not entirely clear. In a copy of the "Überschlag über das Neue Rathaus Anno 1614", a guideline proposal presumably drawn up by Elias Holl, Jürgen Zimmer found evidence that the designation Fürstenzimmer (literally, princely rooms) was an authentic contemporary term, and that their function was to be understood as defined by Sendel: "In diesem ersten Fürsten=Zimmer / seynd in der Köngl. Wahl FERDINAND IV. Höchstseel Gedächtnuß / Anno 1653 logiert gewesen / Ihre Chur-Fürstl. Durchl. Von Cölln" (In this first princely room / during the election of Ferdinand IV, blessed be his memory / / His Serene Highness the Elector of Cologne / did lodge in the year 1653). [27] Yet the four history cycles with the half-figure allegories in the four rooms defy uniform interpretation in the sense of, for instance, princely virtues, although such symbolism is repeatedly used, especially in the south-east room. On the whole, the four cycles reflect the same unequivocally pro-Catholic and pro-imperial sentiment expressed in the paintings by Gundelach and König in the two western rooms. [28] Gundelach's paintings in the north-west princely room depict an event relating to the "armed" Imperial Diet of Augsburg in 1548 at which Charles V acknowledged the renewed allegiance of Maurice of Saxony by granting him the electoral dignity previously held by his kinsman, John Frederick of Saxony, head of the Lutheran Schmalkaldic League, who had been defeated at the Battle of Mühlberg in 1547. König's cycle in the south-west princely room also looks back to the pre-1548 guild constitution, denigrating "democracy" as a form of government, and praising the exemplary properties of "aristocracy" and "monarchy", while the last and largest picture in the cycle shows the people of Europe paying homage to Emperor Ferdinand II. It should be borne in mind that all of this was developed as the thematic programme of a city hall in a predominantly Protestant town. In this connection, it is interesting and important to note that this thematic approach was dropped from the pictorial programmes of the two eastern princely rooms, which, as documents indicate, were executed and paid at a later date. Indeed, the later cycles with their depictions of Greek and Roman history on the one hand (Kager, south-east princely room) and the Old Testament (Kager workshop, north-east princely room) neither form a logical iconographic whole nor do they seem to bear any relationship to the paintings in the western rooms. [29] Kager's pictures with their programmatic frame inscriptions illustrate widespread examples of princely virtues, although his Death of Virginia does not appear to fit the context entirely, and in this respect they are as clear a break from the tendentiously interpreted politics of the day as the Old Testament scenes of the princely room opposite, with their examples of divine justice.

This joint project involving all the leading painters of the day underlined once again the importance of Augsburg painters in the early Baroque period. At the same time, however, a number of issues require clarification. Is it not surprising and regrettable that, on the death of Markus Welser in 1614, no suitably learned person could be found in Augsburg to design the Rathaus programme, leaving the city council no choice but to turn to the Munich Jesuit father Matthäus Rader? Or was it simply a case of the Catholic city council deliberately ignoring Augsburg's leading lights on political or religious grounds? At any rate, having commissioned Rader to design the programme, or at least most of it, it was probably more convenient to have the pictorial proposals for the individual depictions in the programme designed by Peter Candid, who was also in Munich, and whose wonderful little drawings Kager transposed into a huge formats with considerable poetic licence. [30] It is known that Rader also designed the overly sophisticated programme of the four pictures in front of the council chambers in the Oberer Flez and also that Matthias Kager submitted these programmes in his designs to the painter Johann Freyberger, who followed them loyally. This begs the question as to whether the other painters worked or had to work according to Kager's designs or according to the designs from Munich. The fact that the artists involved - Rottenhammer, Gundelach and König - are acknowledged today as qualitatively equal or even superior to Kager would suggest that this was not the case. On the other hand, Rottenhammer had fallen on hard times since 1617 as a result of his drinking and unreliability [31] and received only 300 guilders for the large picture in the Goldener Saal, with the option on a further 50 guilders should the results be pleasing - a ridiculously low price compared to the fees he had formerly commanded. What is more, Johann König had never worked before or since on such large formats. Though a precise and detailed preliminary drawing by König for the painting of Democracy does exist, and an equally precise preliminary drawing by Matthäus Gundelach for one of the pictures in his series on The Enfeoffment of Maurice of Saxony [32] has also survived, it is nevertheless possible that Kager did provide a design. This possibility is supported by the fact that there is a drawing by Kager related to the rendering of an Enfeoffment in Scheyern which could well be a sketch for Gundelach's painting of The Enfeoffment of Maurice of Saxony [33 ]Though this question remains unanswered, it is evident that the Rathaus interior was planned along lines similar to the principles applied by Hainhofer in commissioning and developing his interdisciplinary projects: The word Visierung that occurs repeatedly in his correspondence, that is to say the work drawing or design executed by a painter in preparation for a picture or submitted to another sculptor, architect or craftsman, and presented to the client for approval before work commenced, also played an important role in the Rathaus decoration.

One question that springs to mind with regard to the long period of artistic collaboration on the Rathaus interior is whether the artists involved came to develop a more or less uniform style. In other words, is it possible to speak of an Augsburg style of early Baroque? Neither the oeuvre of Kager, Rottenhammer, König and Gundelach, nor the works they created for the Rathaus betray a stylistic similarity as striking as that to be found half a century later in Augsburg in the works of Isaak Fisches, Johann Heiss, Hans Ulrich Franck, Franz Friedrich Franck, Johann Georg Knappich and Johann Melchior Schmittner. [34] They all belonged to the generation that followed Johann Heinrich Schönfeld, who had settled in Augsburg after the Thirty Years' War, and had made such a profound personal and artistic mark that he spawned a distinctive Augsburg style.

Kager, on the other hand, who had settled in Augsburg earlier than all the other incomers, and whose position as municipal painter and head of the Rathaus decorative programme, could have made him the leading artists, did not possess the necessary artistic influence. Moreover, unlike Schönfeld and his followers, Karger and the painters around him belonged to the same generation and all possessed too much distinctive individuality for a uniform style to develop.

Finally, and most importantly, did these artists who, in my opinion, possessed different individual styles, themselves have followers? Did they form schools or exert any artistic influence? As far as the history of art in Augsburg is concerned, the answer must be negative. Once the war ended, art was created under very different circumstances. Johann Heinrich Schönfeld, returning after more than 30 years in Italy, was born almost 50 years after the oldest of the four established painters, Johann Rottenhammer, and 25 years after the youngest of them, Johann König. The painters who followed him and adopted his style were born around 1630. There could be no question of looking to the work of the pre-war generation. Just how completely the painters of the early Baroque period were forgotten by the generation that followed them is evident in Joachim von Sandrat's Teutsche Akademie, published in 1675 [35]: Johann König is not even mentioned, Matthias Kager only briefly, and Gundelach and Rottenhammer are mentioned primarily in connection with the work they did in Prague and Venice, before arriving in Augsburg.

Of course, there are many who copied and imitated the individual artists, especially Rottenhammer, though not, rather surprisingly, Johann König. Direct followers included the painter Caspar Strauss [36], who had worked with Kager on altar paintings in Zwiefalten in 1623 and who succeeded him as municipal painter in 1640, or Matthias Strasser [37] who completed Gundelach's last works after his designs. Stephan Kessler [38], born in Donauwörth in 1622, who worked in Brixen from around 1643, left a rich and extremely interesting oeuvre featuring many compositional elements and figures borrowed from Kager, probably as a result of Kessler's intensive interest in Bavaria sancta, a copperplate engraving based primarily on Kager's designs. [39]

Only Gundelach's oeuvre, most notably his drawings, would seem to foreshadow the style of late seventeenth century Augsburg art in respect of colority and allover compositional clarity. The Rathaus project marked the end of the first great era of Augsburg painting in the sixteenth century. Of course, in the run-up to the catastrophe of 1635, there were a number of commissions, such as Kager's work for St Maurice and Gundelach's for Haslach, yet the years 1628-29 undoubtedly marked a caesura. Though the end of this early era came inevitably with the death of its main protagonists, it was hastened by the events of war which had had relatively little effect on Augsburg until Emperor Ferdinand II's Edict of Restitution on 6 March 1629. [40] Rottenhammer and Mozart died in 1625, and at the same time Joseph Heintz the Younger, son of Joseph Heintz the Elder and a student of Matthäus Gundelach, left the city, which thus lost one of its most talented painters. [41] He went to Venice and established himself there. Thomas Maurer died in 1626, Johann Freyberger in 1632, Matthias Kager and Georg Petel who had settled in Augsburg in 1625 (too late to work on the Rathaus) died in 1634. Lucas Kilian died in 1637.

The Edict of Restitution which led to the dismissal of Protestant clergymen and Protestant councillors also resulted in 1631 in the dismissal of Elias Holl from his position as city architect (and, incidentally, to the dismissal of Philipp Hainhofer as well) and was directly responsible for Johann König's move to Nuremberg in the same year. In 1634 the city lost another highly talented artist with Christian Steinmüller going to Vienna to become court painter to Ferdinand III. [42] The Swedish occupation of the city was at first welcomed by the Protestant majority and it resulted in Elias Holl's reinstatement, though his work was restricted to the construction of fortifications. Swedish and Protestant rule, under which Gundelach also briefly enjoyed political honour (becoming a member of the Great Council together with his protestant collegues Holl, Freyberger, König, Lucas and Wolfgang Kilian), came to an end only three years later in April 1635. During this time Gundelach was commissioned to produce a monumental portrait of Gustavus Adolphus [43], one of the few major commissions during the later years of the Thirty Years War. Gundelach was the only remaining artist to have been involved in the Rathaus project and was indeed the only artist of more than just local renown. He survived the war, was re-elected to the Great Council in 1649, became actively involved in the city's new and burgeoning artistic development after the war and died at the ripe old age of more than 85. The only other active painter alongside him appears to have been Caspar Strauss, a Catholic and Kager student who succeeded Kager as municipal painter in 1640. Yet he too received only minor commissions during the war, such as mounts for various figures. From the Swedish occupation to the end of the war, there were no major commissions in the field of painting. Insecurity and mistrust between Protestants and Catholics, poverty and general anxiety led to a virtual stagnation of commissions, with few painters travelling to Augsburg and only one settling there permanently in the course of the war.

Johann Christoph Storer [44] stayed briefly in the city as a young man in 1637. That same year, Johann de Pay [45] from Riedlingen, also a Catholic, applied for admission to the Augsburg guild of painters, but was turned down. He was not accepted until five years later, but it is not known how long he stayed. Whereas Storer left a number of dated drawings, documenting his stay, de Pay left no artistic traces whatsoever in the city. In 1637 Hans Ulrich Franck [46] from Kaufbeuren also applied for civic and master's rights in Augsburg, which, in spite of protests from the painters' guild, were granted one year later on grounds that he was a "guet katholisch Meister" (good Catholic master) - an argument that carried considerable weight in a city with a vested interest in increasing the number of its Catholic citizens. No commissions are documented, either of the portraits he is said to have painted in great number, or of the small battle scenes mentioned by von Stetten reports. During the war, in 1643, he began a sequence of twenty-five engravings depicting the soldier's life. Regarded as one of the most important cycles of German prints, it was completed between 1656 and 1657. It is characteristic for Augsburg art of this period that one of its most outstanding and significant works should be in this medium. After all, standards were extremely high in the field of engraving and printmaking, attracting commissions from Protestant and Catholic clients outside Augsburg and consolidating Augsburg's reputation as a city of art alongside the craft of the goldsmiths.

Whereas the goldsmiths, for whom such artists as Hans Friedrich Schorer and Hans Ulrich Franck provided designs, continued to receive so many commissions during the war that their numbers hardly declined [47], the situation in the field of printmaking was rather different. On the whole, it was the Kilian and Custos families - the brothers Lucas and Wolfgang Kilian, students of their stepfather Dominikus Custos und his sons Jakob, David and Raphael - all Protestants, who were behind the flourishing of copperplate engraving in all its forms, from portraiture to religious and secular history, ornament, pamphlets and and reproductions. In the years following 1635, Gundelach provided them with an increasing number of designs. Indeed, he had little choice. As painters were receiving so few commissions, draftsmen were in demand to design title pages, pamphlets and portraits for the printmakers. [48]

In the tempestuous history of art in Augsburg, the years 1630 to 1650 undoubtedly represented a particular low point in the field of painting. Just how much this is due to war and religious conflict is evident in the extraordinarily rapid new beginning once the war ended. As early as 1649, considerably renewals were undertaken in the Protestant Barfüsserkirche, for which Gundelach created a series of grisailles, and in 1652 to 53, the Protestant Church of the Holy Cross was built with donations from all over Europe. Here, too, Gundelach provided designs for the galleries which were implemented by Strasser. [49] In 1655 work began on the Baroque decoration of the cathedral, and in the following years large and small renovations were carried out in all the churches. As there were now commissions to be had, and still more to be expected, the city soon began attracting artists from many regions once again. Bartholomäus Hopfer settled in Augsburg in 1648, Johann Heinrich Schönfeld in 1652, Johann Georg Knappich in 1653. In 1658, Johann Christian Storer painted for the cathedral, and within the following 15 years all those painters arrived in Augsburg - some of them without receiving civic rights - who were to be responsible for the second great flourishing of Augsburg art in the seventeenth century.

FOOTNOTES