Israhel van Meckenem

He was active from 1465 until his death, and continued to work as a goldsmith; there are some surviving pieces, and many documented commissions from the city of Bocholt.

Attempts have been made to identify the father as the Master of the Berlin Passion, an early engraver, but this remains uncertain.

The Master of the Berlin Passion probably worked mainly in the Netherlands, so his identification with Israhel Senior would have implications for the issue of the family origin.

His earliest dated print comes from 1465, and indicates that he created it in Cleves, modern Kleve, on the Dutch border and then Dutch-speaking, where the family had moved.

He is documented in various lawsuits against neighbours, and Ida was fined for "unseemly speech" as well as for "mocking and scolding public officials".

Some plates seem to have been reworked more than once by his workshop, or produced in more than one version, and many impressions have survived, so his ability to distribute and sell his prints was evidently equally well developed.

[7] In the Heures de Charles d'Angoulême, an important manuscript showing the links between printmaking and illumination in the late 15th century, Robinet Testard incorporated sixteen of van Meckenem's prints, gluing them directly on to the vellum then overpainting.