Martin Schongauer (c. 1450–53, Colmar – 2 February 1491, Breisach), also known as Martin Schön ("Martin beautiful") or Hübsch Martin ("pretty Martin") by his contemporaries, was an Alsatian engraver and painter. He was the most important printmaker north of the Alps before Albrecht Dürer, a younger artist who collected his work. Schongauer is the first German painter to be a significant engraver, although he seems to have had the family background and training in goldsmithing which was usual for early engravers. The bulk of Schongauer's surviving production is 116 engravings, all with his monogram but none dated, which were well known not only in Germany, but also in Italy and even made their way to England and Spain. Vasari says that Michelangelo copied one of his engravings, in the Trial of Saint Anthony. His style shows no trace of Italian influence, but a very clear and organised Gothic, which draws from both German and Early Netherlandish painting. Recent scholarship, building on the work of Max Lehrs, attributes 116 engravings to him, with many also being copied by other artists (including his monogram), as was common in the period. His prolific contemporary Israhel van Meckenem did close copies of 58 engravings, exactly half of Schongauer's output, and took motifs or figures from more, as well as apparently engraving some drawings that are now lost. There are some fine drawings, including ones dated and signed with his monogram, and a surviving few paintings in oil and fresco. Biography Schongauer was born about 1450–53 in Colmar, Alsace, the third of four or five sons of Caspar Schongauer, a goldsmith and patrician from Augsburg who moved to Colmar about 1440; Caspar became a master of the goldsmith's guild in 1445, which probably required a residence of five years. He presumably taught his son the art of engraving, which is a distinct and difficult skill that goldsmiths had long used on metal vessels. Two of his brothers worked as goldsmiths in Colmar, while another also became a painter. Colmar is now in France but was then part of the Holy Roman Empire and German-speaking. Most unusually for a Gothic or Renaissance artist, he was sent to university, presumably with the intention of turning him into a priest or lawyer, and matriculated at the University of Leipzig in 1465, but seems to have left after a year. At this time university students often began at the