Hans Sebald Beham “The Standard Bearer” Etching


Hans Sebald Beham (1500 — 1550) was a German printmaker who did his best work as an engraver, and was also a designer of woodcuts and a painter and miniaturist. He is one of the most important of the “Little Masters”, the group of German artists making old master prints in the generation after Dürer.
The older brother of Barthel Beham by two years, he was born into a family of artists in Nuremberg. In 1525, along with his brother and Georg Pencz, the so-called “godless painters”, he was banished from Nuremberg, accused of heresy (against Lutheranism), blasphemy and not recognising the authority of the City council. Within months the three were allowed to return to the city, but Beham was exiled again in 1528 for publishing a book on the proportions of the horse regarded as plagiarised from an unpublished manuscript by Albrecht Dürer, who had recently died. After a period spent working in various German cities, from 1532 he lived mostly in Frankfurt until his death in 1550.

He is increasingly known just as “Sebald Beham”, as this how he usually signed his name in full. The “Hans” seems to derive from the first letter of his monogram only. However, up to about 1532 his prints were monogrammed ‘HSP’, reflecting the Nuremberg pronunciation of his name: Peham. After this date, when he had moved to Frankfurt, his monogram became ‘HSB’ often but NOT always engraved in his works.


Here we have Hans Sebald Beham Engraving one of several, all signed with the artist monogram HB and measures by inches sheet of TRIMMED on the Borderline so there is NO plate mark on laid paper. We estimate this was printed in the late 18th century. Otherwise in good condition.


The work measures 2 by 3 ¼ inches.

Art (paintings, prints, frames)