Height: 455 millimetres

Width: 672 millimetres

Summary of J. Rowlands, 'Drawings by German Artists and Artists from German-speaking regions of Europe in the Department of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum: the Fifteenth Century, and the Sixteenth Century by Artists born before 1530', London, BM Press, 1993, no.95:

'This and 1876,0708.2638/ 1876,0708.2639 were intended as illustrations to a work glorifying the two Habsburg emperors and their ancestors. Dodgson compared them with the miniatures by Jörg Breu the Younger in the manuscript written by Breu's brother-in-law, Hans Tirol (c. 1505-76) in Eton College Library, ‘Joannis Tirolli Antiquitates’ (see BM ‘Dürer and Holbein’, 1988, pp. 184-5, no. 155, repr.; E. Scheicher, ‘Journal of the History of Collections’, Oxford, ii, no. 1, 1990, pp. 75 -78). The illuminations occur in the first volume, of which the finest are: the ‘Triumph of L. Tarquinius Priscus over the Etruscans’, dated 1541 (fol. 40) and the ‘Battle of Regillus’, and ‘Scenes from the life of Lucretia’ (fol. 42). It is likely that the sheets now in the BM collection were either done for this history by Hans Tirol or another, a chronicle of the world from Noah to the reign of Emperor Charles v, executed for presentation to Philip II of Spain (Library of the Escorial, Ms. 28 1 10-12; H. Essenwein, ‘Mitt. Nuremberg’, ii, 1887-89, pp. 2-22; E. Scheicher, op. cit., p. 76, and n. 17). Breu was much employed in Augsburg decorating various ‘Ehrenbücher’ (presentation books) for patrician families and for the city of Augsburg itself (now in Augsburg, Babenhausen and Munich, Bayerisches Nationalmuseum; see Augsburg, ‘Umbruch’, i, pp. 221ff, nos. 157-9, 161-2). Although not as fine as the illuminations in the Eton College manuscript, which are arguably the younger Breu's finest work, his drawings on vellum in the British Museum, are good examples of his illustrations to manuscripts.'

Lit from Rowlands 1993: C. Dodgson, Munich Jahrbuch, NF, xi, 1934, pp. 206ff., repr. pl. 11 (detail of Charles V).