Ornamental Leg-Shaped Vessel

These fantastical vessels, one with a serpent handle (P.68.187) and another with furry legs (P.68.188), hint at the innovations to come from the mind of Augustin Hirschvogel. They were made in 1543, about the time Hirschvogel moved to Vienna after working as a glass painter and cartographer in Nuremberg and present-day Yugoslavia. In Vienna, he used the spontaneity of line exhibited in these ornament prints to create some of the first-ever landscape etchings, helping to establish the genre.