The Young White King at the Butts

Beck employed the traditional relief woodcut method, carving the design into a single block of wood and printing it with ink applied to the raised surfaces. The work relies on crisp, linear incisions to delineate trees, foliage, and figures, creating a stark contrast between the dense forest background and the open space of the butts. The absence of tonal shading emphasizes the graphic clarity prized by Maximilian’s workshop.

Born into the Beck family of miniaturists, Leonhard trained under his father Georg before assisting Hans Holbein the Elder on an altarpiece. His later involvement with Maximilian I’s extensive print program placed him among the artists producing imperial propaganda. The woodcut survived in several copies that entered collections of German princely libraries, eventually reaching museum holdings where it is displayed as part of the early modern print tradition.