HOUSEBOOK, MASTER OF THE

flourished 1450, 70 also called Master Of The Hausbuch, or Master Of The Amsterdam Cabinet, German Hausbuchmeister, or Meister Des Hausbuchs anonymous late Gothic painter and engraver who was one of the outstanding early printmakers. He was formerly referred to as the Master of the Amsterdam Cabinet because the Rijksprentenkabinet, the print room of the Rijksmuseum, in Amsterdam has the largest collection of his line engravings (q.v.) and etchings done with a technique close to drypoint (q.v.). Today he is usually called the Housebook (Hausbuch) Master after a Hausbuch, or sketchbook, drawn by him for the Wolfegg family that is still in Schloss Wolfegg, near Aulendorf in the Lake Constance, or Bodensee, region of Germany. The Hausbuch drawings and his 91 known prints are primarily whimsical and sometimes satiric observations of his contemporary world, although he also did religious subjects. Nothing is known of his life, but art historians generally agree that he was a German artist who came from either Swabia or the Middle Rhine region. Some scholars have advanced the theory that the Housebook Master and the Master of the Amsterdam Cabinet are two different artists, while others have tried to prove that these anonymous works were really done by the young Matthias Grnewald (q.v.).