Hamburg Artist, circa 1420

Anonymous sale, New York, Christie's, January 15, 1985, lot 87 (as Master of Rostock);
There purchased by the present owner.

The following condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com , an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This very heavy panel has been quite recently restored and should be hung in its current condition. The reverse has been treated with what appears to be bolsar wood and packets of granules which are designed to absorb moisture and as elaborate and complicated as this system seems, this panel and its paint layer are happily very stable as a result. The work on the reverse was done in 1977 and it is possible that the paint layer has been cleaned and retouched more recently. The bulk of the retouches address two vertical breaks in the panel, the first running through the center of the sail and the other running through the rear of the boat. Fairly broad cracks have developed and a further crack in the panel has developed in the water on the right side. There are also retouches in the corners around the edges. However, the gilding in the sky seems to be original and much of the remainder of the paint layer seems to be in very healthy state. The varnish is a little uneven and bright and some attention could be given to this. Overall however, the picture is in good condition and is ready to be hung as is.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

The Voyage of St. Ursula to Cologne is taken from the Legend of St. Ursula, of which there are two related versions.  The one more common in Germany in the fifteenth century is the story of a princess from Britain who is sought in marriage by the son of a German king.  She is a Christian and does not wish to marry a pagan, so she delays and spends three years traveling around the world in order to avoid marriage.  She and each of her ten ladies-in-waiting are accompanied by 1,000 attendants, the whole party consisting of 11,000 virgins are accommodated on eleven ships.  Eventually an ill wind blows them to the mouth of the Rhine at Cologne, from which they continue to Basel, then over the Alps to Rome and back again.  On their return to Cologne they are slain by the king's army, outraged that their prince has been scorned.

The present work shows a single ship on very choppy seas.  Clutching the sails are four malevolent-looking demons, who follow the virgins on their voyage.  While in most depictions of St. Ursula, the artists, of necessity, show only a limited number of attendants, here, the painter has devised a remarkable means of portraying them, truncating the women so that only their heads and the upper part of their torsos are visible above the bows of the ship.  It is this idiosyncratic approach that no doubt suggested that this work was by the same hand as the Return of the Three Kings from the Three Kings Altarpiece in Rostock.  There, as here, the outsized figures are crowded into the ship so that only their heads and shoulders are visible, and they sail on a sharp diagonal course through extremely orderly waves.¹  The facial types in the Rostock altarpiece are, however, quite different, as are specific motifs.  For example, the waves in the altarpiece resemble tiny volcanoes rather than the frothy peaks of the present work. 

Recently Ludwig Meyer has suggested a different origin and earlier generation of artists.  He locates it to Hamburg circa1420.²   The most influential painter during that period was Master Bertram, and such details as the rock forms and the demons in The Voyage of St. Ursula are similar to those of various masters in his circle.  Perhaps the closest comparison is the Buxtehude Altarpiece, for which its painter, a master in the circle of Master Bertram, is named.  The figures in the Birth of the Virgin from the Buxtehude Altarpiece (see fig. 1), are of a similar facial type, with wide-spaced eyes, well-defined lips and a certain fixity of expression and stiffness of form.  One sees this most clearly in the standing figure to the left of St. Anne who seems quite immobile from the shoulders upward.  While the absence of revealing motifs of drapery and landscape make the attribution of The Voyage of St. Ursula more complicated, the resemblances here suggest an artist in the circle of the Buxtehude Master.

We are grateful to Ludwig Meyer for his help in writing this note. 

1  The artist responsible for the altar has been identified by Harald Busch as the Master of the Rostock Three King's Altarpiece and by Alfred Stange as the Workshop of the Altarpiece of the Patriarchs.  H. Busch, Meister des Nordens.  Die Altniederdeutsche Malerei, 1450-1550, Hamburg 1940, pp. 64-65, reproduced fig. 2 and A. Stange, Kritischer Verzeichnis der deutschen Tafelbilder vor Duerer, vol. 1:  Koeln, Niederrhein, Westfalen, Hamburg, Luebeck und Nidersachsen, Munich 1967, p. 197.
2  L. Meyer, letter of October 25, 2007.