The Prodigal Son and the Passion of Christ in Early Basel Woodcut Illustration
Meder, Johannes. Parabola filij glutonis profusi atque prodigi […] pro totius anni precipue quadragesime sermonibus accommodata. Basel, Michael Furter, 1510.
A remarkable Basel illustrated devotional book of 1510 containing fifty Lenten sermons by the Franciscan preacher Johannes Meder, edited by Sebastian Brant and illustrated with eighteen nearly full-page woodcuts by the enigmatic “Master of Haintz Narr,” one of the most gifted Basel woodcut artists active immediately after Dürer’s departure from the city.
The present copy is especially attractive for its contemporary hand-colouring, executed in warm tones of yellow, orange, red, and brown with occasional blue-grey accents. The restrained but expressive colouring gives the cycle an unusually contemplative atmosphere fully suited to the devotional purpose of the book.
Edition & Bibliographic Information
Octavo (approximately 151 × 105 mm), printed in double columns with paragraph marks supplied in red by hand.
Illustrated with eighteen full-page woodcuts, two repeated, together with three different printer’s devices of Michael Furter. The title page is printed in black and red. Numerous Lombard initials were supplied by hand in red throughout the volume.
Bound in a modern dark brown calf binding by the Parisian binder Georges Huser after historical models, with blind tooling and classical Renaissance-inspired decoration.
Sebastian Brant and Basel after the Ship of Fools
The book belongs directly to the artistic and intellectual world created by Sebastian Brant’s Narrenschiff (Ship of Fools), first printed in Basel in 1494.
Johannes Meder’s sermons had already appeared several times during the incunable period under the title Quadragesimale de filio prodigio, likewise under the editorial supervision of Sebastian Brant, who also contributed a preface and dedicatory verses. For the present final edition of 1510, the text was newly reset and supplemented with additional verses by the Franciscan Daniel Maier, known as Agricola.
The illustrations derive from an earlier cycle created around the turn of the century but reworked for this edition through more systematic cross-hatching and sharper modelling. Their artistic context is deeply connected to the generation of Basel illustrators shaped by Dürer’s brief but transformative presence in the city during the early 1490s.
The Master of Haintz Narr
The woodcuts are attributed to the so-called Master of Haintz Narr, described by early scholarship as the finest native woodcut designer active in Basel before Dürer’s arrival.
The artist had already participated in the illustration of Brant’s Ship of Fools and gradually absorbed aspects of the new naturalistic visual language associated with Dürer, while still retaining elements of the older late Gothic Basel tradition.
Particularly striking is the artist’s gift for expressive gesture and narrative clarity. Figures communicate emotionally through movement and posture rather than elaborate spatial illusion. The influence of Dürer appears most clearly in the sharply twisting tree trunks and increasingly sculptural modelling of faces and drapery, yet the cycle ultimately maintains a distinctly Basel character.
The Prodigal Son as a Passion Narrative
What makes the illustration cycle especially unusual is the way it intertwines the story of the Prodigal Son with the Passion of Christ.
From the beginning of the narrative, the wandering son is accompanied by an angel who repeatedly gestures toward repentance and eventual spiritual return. The imagery gradually transforms the biblical parable into a broader meditation on sin, redemption, suffering, and imitation of Christ.
The sequence was clearly designed not merely as sermon illustration but also as an aid to private contemplation. This function is reinforced by the contemporary colouring, whose warm restrained palette encourages clarity and meditative concentration rather than visual excess.
Provenance
Probably from the Dominican convent at Freiburg im Breisgau, based on an early ownership inscription on the title page. Later bearing the monogram stamp “VF” in laurel wreath, circa 1800. Label of the Basel antiquarian bookseller Henning Oppermann on rear pastedown.
Literature
BM STC German 605; Brunet III, 1565f.; Graesse IV, 460; Hieronymus 1972, no. 61; Isaac 14121; VD16 M 1855; Wilhelmi 445. For the binder Georges Huser see Devauchelle III, 262f.; Fléty 93.
For a fuller scholarly description and illustrations, see Wunderkammer Catalogue 90, number 36:
Wunderkammer Catalogue 90, Volume I
