Signboard for a Schoolmaster

This signboard, which has writing and painting on both sides, advertises the services of the schoolmaster Myconius. The same text appears on both sides: anyone can learn to read and write, irrespective of whether he or she is a burgher, an apprentice artisan, a woman, maid, boy, or girl. If, despite all the effort they should fail, slow learners would have nothing to pay. Whereas Hans Holbein shows two grown men being taught to write (see at Hans Holbein), Ambrosius depicts a reading lesson for children (this picture). Although the teacher is giving one pupil a "helping hand" with a switch, this scene lacks the tension that marks Hans's picture of the adults at study. His figures are much larger proportionally, they cast energetic shadows, and both physical attitude and facial expression tellingly catch the concentrated strain of the teacher and his students.