relative distances apart as those of the actual
scenes between Pilate's house and Golgotha. Easter Sepulchres were
often enriched with very beautiful sculptures by the first masters.
Adam Kraft carved the noble scene of the Burial of Christ in St.
John's churchyard in Nueremberg.

[Illustration: ST. LORENZ CHURCH, NUREMBERG, SHOWING ADAM KRAFT'S
PYX, AND THE HANGING MEDALLION BY VEIT STOSS]

It is curious that the same mind and hand which conceived and carved
these short stumpy figures, should have made the marvel of slim
grace, the Tabernacle, or Pyx, at St. Lorenz. A figure of the artist
kneeling, together with two workmen, one old and one young, supports
the beautiful shrine, which rears itself in graduated stages to
the tall Gothic roof, where it follows the curve of a rib, and
turns over at the top exactly like some beautiful clinging plant
departing from its support, and flowering into an exquisitely
proportioned spiral. It suggests a gigantic crozier. Before it was
known what a slender metal core followed this wonderful growth,
on the inside, there was a tradition that Kraft had discovered
"a wonderful method for softening and moulding hard stones." The
charming relief by Kraft on the Weighing Office exhibits quite
another side of his genius; here three men are engaged in weighing
a bale of goods in a pair of scales: a charming arrangement of
proportion naturally grows out of this theme, which may have been
a survival in the mind of the artist of his memory of the numerous
tympana with the Judgment of Michael weighing souls. The design is
most attractive, and the decorative feeling is enhanced by two
coats of arms and a little Gothic tracery running across the top.
When Adam Kraft died in 1508, the art of sculpture practically
ceased in Nueremberg.

[Illustration: RELIEF BY ADAM KRAFT]

CHAPTER IX

CARVING IN WOOD AND IVORY

If the Germans were somewhat less original than the French, English,
and Italians in their stone carving, they made up for this deficiency
by a very remarkable skill in wood carving. Being later, in period,
this art was usually characterized by more naturalism than that
of sculpture in stone.

In Germany the art of sculpture in wood is said to have been in full
favour as early as the thirteenth century. There are two excellent
wooden monuments, one at Laach erected to Count Palatine Henry III.,
who died in 1095, and another to Count Henry III. of Sayne, in
1246. The carving s