Martin Schongauer - Le bel immortel

Martin Schongauer is one of the most important and popular Germanic artists of the late Middle Ages. Born in Colmar around 1445 and died in Vieux-Brisach in 1491, he established himself as a painter but earned his renown, during his lifetime, through his work as an engraver. The son and brother of goldsmiths, he did not practise the trade himself but almost certainly learned in his father’s workshop the delicate handling of the engraver’s burin, which he brought to a high degree of perfection.

The exhibition presents a large selection of his engraved and drawn works and, for the first time, almost all of his easel paintings and altarpieces, including the Virgin of the Rosebush of 1473, his only dated painted panel. Schongauer reveals himself as a keen observer of nature, an inventive and delicate storyteller, and also as a learned artist.

Martin Schongauer’s engravings, widely circulated, captivated several generations of artists. Drawing on all the arts, the works presented in the second part of the exhibition, originating from much of the European continent and created up to the very beginning of the 17th century, make it possible to appreciate the broad artistic reception of the works of “Beau Martin.”