Matthäus Gundelach

The following condition report is provided by Hamish Dewar who is an external specialist and not an employee of Sotheby's: The copper support is securely held within the frame. This is providing a stable structural support. The paint surface is uneven and discoloured with scattered surface accretions and small scattered scratches and losses. Inspection under ultra-violet light shows a heavily discoloured varnish layer and small scattered spots and lines of retouching including lines of strengthening around some of the figures. Overall the painting is in good and stable condition. The work is framed.
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This hitherto undocumented and unpublished Coronation of the Virgin by Matthäus Gundelach is relatable to two other treatments of the subject by the artist. The first is an altarpiece for the former Capuchin cloister church in Haslach, in the south-west German state of Baden-Württemberg. It was painted for Count Christoph II of Fürstenberg, measures 224 x 335 cm, and is signed and dated 1714. Documents ordering payment to Gundelach indicate that the altarpiece was executed in Prague, where the artist was based between 1593 and 1615. Gundelach’s second Coronation of the Virgin is a drawing in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, dated to 1615 or before.¹ The drawing appears to be much closer to a Coronation of the Virgin by Hans von Aachen, to whom the drawing had previously been attributed, in the Church of Saint Ulrich and Afra in Augsburg,² than to the present composition.

Gundelach was born in Hesse, the son of the painter Hans Gundelach. The young Gundelach was in Prague by his mid-twenties where he signed and dated a drawing Minerva and Ceres (1593),³ and annotated that he came from Cassel, where we might assume that he was born. It is apparent from the handful of early copies by Gundelach of works by Bartholomäus Spranger that he was a great admirer of the older Antwerp-born master, but he quickly became closely associated with Joseph Heintz, court painter for Emperor Rudolph II. It has been suggested that Gundelach was a pupil of Heintz as he completed at least one work by him, and is recorded as having copied his drawings.⁴ Indeed Gundelach seems to have been something of a replacement for Heintz; upon the latter’s death in 1609, Gundelach took his place as imperial Kammermaler to the Emperor, inherited his studio, married his widow Regina, and acted as guardian to Heintz’s children.

Heintz himself had painted the subject when he was commissioned to paint The Coronation of the Virgin by the Trinity, for Christoph Fugger from Augsburg, a work now in the collection of the Prince of Liechtenstein.⁵ The harmonious and balanced construction of Heintz’s composition, dated to between 1602 and 1614/15 by Jürgen Zimmer,⁶ with its glowing back-light, and imposing figures of Christ and of God, and the sweetness of spirit with which the contemplative Virgin is depicted, are all certainly features that seem to have inspired Gundelach’s own Coronation. An execution date for the present work to the same period in which Heintz produced his altarpiece, or just after, seems probable.

Zimmer wrote that Heintz’s painting follows the Roman-Bolognese tradition. While Gundelach himself is thought not to have travelled to Italy, Spranger, Heintz, and Hans van Aachen, each prominent masters at the court of Rudolf II and each significant influences on Gundelach, all spent time in Venice, Florence and Rome. Through the collaboration of these painters, and with the artistic exchange within the court of Rudolf II, the influence of those Italian masters such as Correggio, Tintoretto, Barocci and the sculptor Giambologna, became fused with the legacy of the artists of the northern Renaissance, such as Albrecht Dürer and Pieter Brueghel the Elder. This combination resulted in the unique sensual mannerism of the Prague School in the early decades of the seventeenth century, visible here in Gundelach’s Coronation. Here, the 'sweet' style of among other parts the Virgin suggests that Gundelach may have extended his teachers interest in Correggio and Barocci to include the latters Sienese followers Francesco Vanni and Ventura Salimbeni .

In about 1615 Gundelach left Prague. He is known to have been in the service of the Duke of Württemberg between 1616 and 1617, and settled in Augsburg soon after, where he became the representative of the new early Baroque style. He enjoyed an active and varied career as a painter and designer of prints until his death in 1654.

The use of a copper plate as a support is not unusual for paintings produced at this time. Smaller works were often on copper, reflecting the contemporary taste for highly detailed, almost miniaturist works, painted in jewel-like colours with a glossy smooth finish. Such paintings formed an important part of a Kunstkammer such as that created by Emperor Rudolf II.

We are grateful for Dr Jürgen Zimmer for proposing the attribution of the present lot to Matthäus Gundelach.

1. Inv. no. 2009.70.1. See M. Morgan Grasselli and A. Wheelock (eds), The McCrindle Gift, A Distinguished Collection of Drawings and Watercolours, Washington 2012, p. 43, reproduced.
2. T. DaCosta Kaufmann, The School of Prague, Painting at the Court of Rudolf II, Chicago and London 1988, p. 134.
3. DaCosta Kaufmann 1988, p. 37, reproduced fig. 30.
4. DaCosta Kaufmann 1988, p. 180.
5. Liechtenstein inventory number GE 2411. See DaCosta Kaufmann 1988, p. 192, cat. no. 7.31, reproduced.
6. J. Zimmer, ‘Joseph Heintz und die Fugger’, in Alte und Moderne Kunst, no. 25, 1980, p. 18.