Schongauer, Martin (c. 1450–1491)

German painter and engraver. He worked in the ornate, late Gothic style, his best-known painting being The Madonna of the Rose-Arbour (1473) (St Martin's Church, Colmar). He was one of the most important early engravers and helped to transform engraving from a craft to an art.

Deeply influenced by Rogier van Weyden, he in turn influenced many of his contemporaries. The young Dürer, who admired and copied his work, sought him out and, though Schongauer died before they could meet, worked in his studio in Colmar.

Schongauer was the son of the goldsmith, Kaspar Schongauer, and became a freeman of Colmar 1455. From about 1473 he worked in Colmar, where the monastery church has his one entirely authenticated painting, The Madonna of the Rose-Arbour. In 1488 he became a citizen of Breisach.