The Nativity

c. 1466 – 1469

Learns painting from Caspar Isenmann

After early training in his father’s goldsmith workshop, he is thought to have learned painting from Colmar’s leading master Caspar Isenmann, a neighbour of his parents and a follower of Early Netherlandish painting. The older view that Master E. S. taught him engraving is now doubted by scholars.

not after 1469

Journeyman travels through Burgundy and the Netherlands

He makes the journeyman’s tour expected of artists of his time, begun by 1469 at the latest: he visits Burgundy and the Netherlands and gets to know the work of Rogier van der Weyden, Dirk Bouts, the Cologne school around Stefan Lochner and the Flemish school of Jan van Eyck. He is thought to have worked for a time with Hans Pleydenwurff in Nuremberg, and some scholars believe he also visited Spain, perhaps Portugal.

1469

Back in Colmar

Having finished his travels, he is recorded back in Colmar in 1469.

early 1470s

Begins signing his engravings with a monogram

He is thought to have begun signing his engravings with the monogram M†S in the early 1470s; 116 engravings are attributed to him, and none of them is dated.

1471

Sets up his own workshop in Colmar

By 1471 he has his own workshop: that year payments are made for an altarpiece for the Dominican church in Colmar, now in the museum and regarded as a workshop production.

c. 1471 – 1491

Twenty years at the head of German engraving

He dominates German engraving for about twenty years: his 116 engravings are known in Germany and Italy, reach England and Spain, and in Italy their maker is nicknamed “Beautiful Martin”; according to Vasari, Michelangelo copied his Temptation of St Anthony.