The Identification of a Print Study for a Woodcut in Hieronymus Köler’s Album Amicorum in the British Library

Abstract

• A coloured woodcut portrait of Mikolaj [Nicholas] Krzysztof Radziwill (known as Sierotka, 'The Orphan') (1549-1616) is included in the album amicorum compiled c. 1563 by Hieronymus Köler of Nuremberg (BL, Egerton MS. 1184). An uncoloured version of the portrait also occurs in a volume of Greek poems by Martinus Crusius, Martini Crusii Poematum graecorum libri duo, published in Basle by Oporinus in 1566. In this article the print study for the portrait is shown to be a drawing in the Louvre, signed with the monogram DK, and attributed to David Kandel.