Master of the Housebook

[3] It is thought that because his prints were made using only the shallow, scratched line of drypoint, probably on tin or a pewter-type alloy, only ten to twenty impressions of each could be taken before the plate wore out.

A small number of paintings are also thought to be his work, notably the Pair of Lovers in the Ducal Museum Gotha, the Speyer Altarpiece (divided among Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, the Städel, Frankfurt, and Augustiner Museum Freiburg, and the Holy Family (Nuremberg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum, since 2004).

[8] It was first suggested in 1936 that he should be identified as Erhard Reuwich of Utrecht, an artist and (or) printer working in Mainz, who designed and signed an influential 5-foot-long (1.5 m) woodcut panoramic view of Venice made following a visit in 1483 or 1484 during a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

[9] Reuwich printed the account in Latin of the trip, the Sanctae Peregrinationes by Bernhard von Breydenbach of 1486, in which the woodcut was the first ever fold-out plate.

The book also contained panoramas of six other cities, including Jerusalem[2], studies of Near Eastern costume, and an exotic alphabet - the first in print.

[3] [4] It was a bestseller, reprinted thirteen times over the next three decades, including editions printed in France and Spain, for which the illustration blocks were shipped out to the local printers.