Pope Alexander VI.

Donated 1885 by Vojtěch Lanna. Graphic plates and printing blocks rank among the rare surviving artefacts. In 1885, Vojtěch Lanna donated three such works of 16th-century German graphic art to the Picture Gallery of the Society of Patriotic Friends of the Arts: a copper and an iron plates, both etched, and a wooden printing block, which were all accompanied by later imprints. The character of these donations documents Lanna’s effort to develop an educative collection, as well as his interest in the methods of creating works of art. The exhibited plate is the work of Hieronymus Hopfer, one of the less significant engravers active in Nuremberg and an admirer of Dürer. It is one of the early etchings executed on a plate of iron, which was later replaced by copper. The print forms part of a series of eight portraits of Renaissance popes.