Hans Lützelburger

Who was Hans Lützelburger?

Hans Lützelburger, also known as Hans Franck, was a German blockcutter for woodcuts, regarded as one of the finest of his day. He cut the blocks but as far as is known was not an artist himself. He is best known for his virtuoso work on 41 of the "superbly cut" series of tiny woodcuts of the Dance of Death, designed by Hans Holbein the Younger, which Lützelburger left unfinished when he died.

He is known to have been active, and already well-established, in Augsburg from c. 1516, where he was working, and signing the reverse of blocks, under Jost de Negker, the other great blockcutter of the period, on the print projects for Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor involving Albrecht Dürer, Hans Burgkmair and other artists. In 1522 his "first undoubted masterpiece", the Battle of Naked Men and Peasants by Master NH, was published, which in at least one edition carried an extra block in the margin below with his name as "FURMSCHNIDER" and the date in a tablet - a very unusual feature. This also includes portraits of Lützelburger and the artist, naked except for cloths covering their genitals, pointing to the tablet.