Page:History of the German people at the close of the Middle Ages vol1.djvu/199

SCULPTURE AND PAINTING 187 arts closely bound up together, and the masterpieces of sculpture bear the clear stamp of their relation to their mother-art. The greater number of the masterworks of the fifteenth century have been destroyed, but we have yet remaining many good specimens in stone, metal, and wood — such as statues on domes, churches, chapels, and private houses ; porches ; altars covered with figures in low and high relief; bronze altars, tabernacles, organ frames, baptismal fonts ; monuments for tombs in stone and brass ; chancel and choir stalls ; church vessels of all sizes and in different metals ; monstrances, ciboriums, reliquaries, altar-crosses, cro- ziers, candelabra, and other metal work ; drinking cups, scabbards, and such-like. The business of the gold and silversmiths was par- ticularly brisk and diversified, and many of them pro- duced results which quite equalled, if they did not surpass, the best Greek and Oriental work. This branch of art reached its highest perfection at Nurem- berg, Cologne, Augsburg, Eatisbon, Landshut, and Mentz. In the year 1475 there were more than thirty thousand goldsmiths in Mentz, and many whose names have come down to posterity were citizens of Augs- burg, Eatisbon, and Landshut. 1 The famous goldsmith, George Seld, was employed for twenty-six years in Augsburg at the construction of a silver altar for the cathedral. It was a representation of the scenes of the Last Supper, the Passion, and the Eesurrection, and it weighed almost two hundred pounds. The goldsmiths' trade in Nuremberg often numbered more than fifty ' masters,' who had large workshops and 1 Sighart, pp. 551-554. There is hardly a German town of that period which did not claim some renowned goldsmith. See Myer, i. 475.