THE SCULPTORS

What do we koow of these men, of these “artist—craftsmen” (the distinction is blurted in the Middle Ages)? What do we know of their working conditions, their social status, their personal lives? Truth to tell, in spite of increasing research into written records and the works themselves, we are still badly informed. If documents for some regions are fairly abundant, they are often rare or not exphcit enough for others, and the vast majority of extant sculptures remains anonymous. Yet, in spite of everything, light can be thrown on several aspects of the craft and on the role of the Gothic sculptor.
In the fifteenth century independent urban workshops replaced the great religious building sites. The statutes of the  guilds to which the sculptors belonged, particularly well known in the case of German towns, regulated the profession with the aim of controlling production and hindering foreign competition. At Ulm in 1496 the master builder had to be a burgess of the town: if he gave work to a sculptor from another city he had to pay a special tax. The number of journeymen attached to the same workshop was not restricted, but the number of apprentices was limited to two and the minimum length of apprenticeship was four years. Elsewhere arc specified the length of service as a journeyman and the modalities for executing a piece ofwork qualifying for mastership. Most of the time the master was assisted in his workshop by one or two journeymen and one or two apprentices. In France, Michel Colombe was aided in building the Nantes tomb by two journeymen, including his nephew Gusllaume Regnault, and by two Italians responsible for the decorative elements. But the popular workshops could be very much larger in numbers, like that of Ricmenschncider at Wurzburg, which between tos and 1517 had twelve apprentices and several journeymen.
Frequently the handing down of the craft took place in a family context favourable to a precocious apprentice, and th workshop was passed on to a close relative: thus Regnaolt kept on his uncle’s workshop at Tours. Sometimes veritable dynasties were formed, like that of the Vigusers in Rouergue and in Albigeois. Family ties were also formed between representatives of different professions joiners, sculptors, painters, goldsmiths, glass painters—who often hved close to each other in the same neighbourhood and joined forces to carry out a commission. The Swabian sculptor Daniel Mauch married the daughter of the painter Jdrg Stocker in 1503 or thereabouts; in 1502-I504 Gregor Erhart undertook an altar- piece for the monastery of Kaisheim together with his brother-sn-law, the joiner Adolf Daucher, whose son Hans was trained by Erhart himself; from i o8 to 1525 the seulptorjorge Fernndez and his brother Alexo, a painter, collaborated on the altarpiece for Seville Cathedral.
From all (oo rare documents filters personal information about the sculptors. Thus we learn of the quarrelsome temperament of Jean de La Huerta, convicted in 1448 of having insulted and drawn his dagger against Philippe Mchefoing, counsellor of the Duke of Burgundy; or of the fatigue, towards the end of his life, of Michel Colombe, described as “quite old and heavy... gouty and sickly from past labours,” who refuses to carve unaided the tombs of Brou for Margaret of Anstria. Nevertheless, nothing explains the individual choices reflected in the works, which, if they were specified, might help us better to understand how certain styhstic mutations occurred.
As for the sculptors’ material and social situation, it remained extremely variable in the late Middle Ages. Some owned a house and a few chattels, but their prosperity was modest as compared with the wealth of other professional classes. The salaries and amounts of payment often seem small when measured against the cost of living, even if those sums were accompanied, as was the custom, by compensation in kind and by settlement of additional expenses, arising, for example, from the transport of the work and the furnishing of materials. The use of gold, silver and expensive pigments such as azurite blue, partly explains why painters might receive relatively higher sums than those granted to sculptors. Furthermore, not enough is known about the relation between wealth and social standing. Master sculptors could profit from a high posinon in the city or enjoy the consideration of the great:
Tilman Riemensehneider was burgomaster of Wrzburg in 1520-1521 and Ohvier Le Leergan, who made the Le Faont rood screen, was ennobled in 1469 by the Duke of Brittany.
Written sources tell us more about the fame of some masters who were sought after, showered with praise, or became for a time sculptors by appointment to a ruler without actually being attached to him (holding, in France, the enviable title of valet de chambre) , as in the European courts around 1400 and during the Renaissance. The sculptor of the waning Middle Ages generally appears more as a “bourgeois craftsman” than as a “court artist,” the precise difference between the two terms “artist” and “craftsman” moreover being difficult for the period to grasp. Described as “image—carver” or “image—maker” (Bildhauer, Bildschuitzer, Beeldhouwer, imaginario, etc.), he was also called “workman” (Werkman) without any deprecatory intention, since the word might be accompanied by flattering adjectives. Miehel Colombe was described as a “great workman” and La Hnerta as a “very good workman at his trade of image-making and famous for it.” The term, however, places the accent on the work the sculptor does with his hands, and allows us to suppose a distinction, though not necessarily qualitative, between the practice of the painter and that of the sculptor, who faced more restrictive material problems and had to expend physical energy on his work. In any ease, both painters and sculptors, who sometimes practised the two trades concurrently, were conscious of the value of their works, as testified by some inscriptions.
The rarity of signatures, a general phenomenon at the end of the Middle Ages, does not necessarily suggest that the men effaced themselves behind their creations and were indifferent to their fame. Many of the most highly reputed omitted to sign, whereas sculptors now considered less talented or less inventive, such asJan van Steef— feswert, active in the middle Mense in the early sixteenth century, put their name to their productions several times. In a collaboration the name of the painter, joiner or architect might appear on the work or in the contract, while the sculptor remained unknown. Germany provides many examples of altarpieces that bear the painter’s signature only: that of Nhrdlingen, for instance, signed and dated by Friedrich Herlin, while its celebrated sculptures are andnymnus and have led to controversial attributions; the altarpieces of the Nhrdlingen painter Sebastian Dayg in the former abbey church of Hedsbronn; or those of the Strigel painters of Memmingen. The signer was usually the master, who concluded a contract with the person who furnished the funds; he provided a design for the altarpieee (l/isieruug, Riss), sub—contracted for the different parts to be executed and collected payments. This role of iutern ediary was also often held by thcjoiner or cabinetmaker (Schreioer, Kistler) , for example Jhrg Syrhn the Elder who in 5474 designed the altarpiccc for the high altar of Ulm Cathedral, or his son Syrlin the Younger, long mistakenly regarded as a sculptor, who supervised the execution of many works. Similarly in Spain the eutallador might make a sketch (traza) but the sculptor himself was, as elsewhere, frcqncntly responsible for the overall plau. Of the designs that have come down to us, very few match surviving works, like the design by Veit Stoss for the altarpiccc still in Bambcrg Cathedral. In the absence of preserved evidence, several documents also mcntaon the use of full—scale models or maquettcs made by the sculptors, such as in France the famous examples of stone or tcrracotta models requested of Michcl Culombc. In ‘474 he was paid by the treasurer of Lonis XI “for having carved in stone a small model in the shape of a tomb at the command of the king and with his portrait and bkcncss” (doubtless from the sketch painted by Jean Fouquet, who was paid at the same time); an sis Colombc agreed to provide terracotta models (based on drawings by the painter Jean Pcrral) “in small size” for the Brou tombs.
The execution of a design or sculptured model often accompanied the written contract, which came into general usc in the late Middle Ages. The contract, which bound the cxccutant and his client, laid down certain specifications for the work: materials, completion dates and modes of payment. Sometimes it listed in detail the demands of the client, who for example prescribed the iconographic programme, cited a model for imitation or stipulated the use of specific colours. In 1504 Bishop Diego de Dcza imposed the altarpicce of the college of Santa Cruz at Valladohd as a model for the high altar of Palcncia Cathedral and provided designs for the decorative parts:
in 1505 he laid down the iconography of the figures, listed in an annotated plan added to the contract, and he chose the sculptor Felipc Bigamy, ruhng out Alcjo dc Vabia. who h’ad been prevaously engaged by two members of the cathedral chapter. At Bordeaux the shoemakers’ guild. having struck a bargain with Jean Baudoyn in 1497 for two wooden statues, respectively of St Crispin and St Crispinian, signed a contract with the painter Philippe Perlant which specified very precisely the parts to be gilded and the appearance of the fnrs on the robes, the one being “of the colour of martens and the other of cats.”
But the artists did not always respect the written instmuc— tiuns. They could take some liberties with the initial project or else, if they had several irons in the fire at once. delay carrying out the works or leave them to their collaborators. It is understandable that the contract fur the pulpit concluded in 5500 between the St George worksite at Haguenau and Veit Wagner stipulated that “Master Veit must work on the piece himself” (“sal der genant meister Vitt selbs on salichem werg arbeiteri’’) and that the work mnst not be entrusted to “journeymen, servants or other underlings” (“kuechten, gesinde und auderu ussrihteu”). The carrying out of commissions led the sculptor to travel, sometimes quite far from his native town, either because he was sought after for his talent, like Nicholas of Leyden who was summoned by the emperor, or becanse he needed to find a more open market. The case ufJacques Morel is well known: his career took him from Lyons, where he was born, to Toulouse, Rodcz, Muntpellier, Avignun, Sonvigny and Angers. On the other hand, Michael Pacher made the altarpicce for the St Wolfgang church in the Salzkammcrgut in his workshop at Bruneck, in South Tyrol; and Michel Columbe carved at Tours the tomb sculptures of the Dukes of Brittany, which were then shipped down the Loire to Nantes. But many were the artists who emigrated in search of a chentele and who, taking advantage of political and economic tics existing between countries, married and settled in an adoptive town, hkc the painters and sculptors from Germany and the Netherlands who moved to Spain in the fifteenth century.