262 Sculpture in the Renaissance Period. In the Netherlands but few works of importance were produced in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The famous chimneypiece of carved wood, in the Palais de Justice at Bruges,* designed by Lancelot Blondeel and Guy de Beaugrant, dating from the year 1529, is an extremely fine specimen of the completed Renaissance style of decorative sculpture ; but there are no isolated statues or bas-reliefs in marble to be enumerated. In Spain, Alonzo Berruguete (1480 — 1561) and Jaspar Becerra (1520 — 1570) were the only sculptors of eminence in the Renaissance period. To the former is attributed the marble group of the Transfiguration in the cathedral of Toledo, and to the latter a very beautiful statue of Our Lady of Solitude, in the chapel of a Franciscan convent at Madrid. In Germany the principal works produced in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were wood-carvings in cathedrals and other ecclesiastical buildings. The stern realism which distinguished Italian work of the fifteenth century is equally noticeable in the productions of German artists. The Swabian school was the first to adopt the new style, and in the work of its masters accurate imitation of nature was combined with a genuine feeling for beauty. Jorg Syrlin of Ulm (1469 — 1474) was the greatest wood-carver of Swabia. He disdained the aid of painting, and raised his art to an independent position. Ulm Cathedral con- tains many fine specimens of his skill ; of these the choir-stalls, superior to everything of the kind previously produced, deserve special mention. The carved figures representing heroes of the heathen world, of Judaea, and of
- A cnst is in the South Kensington Museum.
