- 41
Southern German, probably Augsburg, circa 1520-1535
Estimate
100,000 - 150,000 GBP
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Description
- Bust of a nobleman, possibly Ludwig V., Elector Palatine
- wood
- Southern German, probably Augsburg, circa 1520-1535
Provenance
Private collection, Basel, Switzerland
Condition
Overall the condition of the bust is very good, with minor wear and dirt to the surface consistent with age. The bust is superbly carved and is a remarkable survival. The bust may have originally been polychromed; the polychromy appears to have been removed and a varnish was applied to the surface which has darkened in areas, particularly to areas of the neck. There is some stable splitting to the wood consistent with the material, notably a split running from the proper right side of the nose down through the beard; another to the chest at the centre; and further minor splits to the top of the hat and to the brim of the hat at the front. There are a few small losses to the upper edge of the hat's brim, including above the proper right temple and at the back. There are some small losses to the bottom edge at the proper left shoulder, and there is a small hole to the wood above this loss. A section of the proper left shoulder at the back is carved separately, and a joint is visible, there is a metal pin and a small hole. There are a few minor scratches and abrasions, including to the back of the neck. There are a few very small dark spots to the beard on the proper right side. A rectangular lacunae has been cut to the underside, and there is a small hole.
"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. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."
"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. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."
Catalogue Note
This virtuoso wood bust of a nobleman is a remarkable survival from Renaissance Germany. Exceptional in being among only a handful of German portrait busts from the early 16th century that have defied the ravages of time, the bust is particularly rare in bearing a compelling likeness to one of the foremost Southern German rulers from this period, Ludwig V., Elector Palatine. Its close relation to the work of medallists active primarily in Augsburg and Nuremberg suggests that the bust was commissioned around the Imperial Diets of the 1520s and 1530s, which encouraged the hitherto uncommon practice of portraiture in Germany’s southern states.
To quote Jeffrey Chipps Smith in his influential survey of German Renaissance sculpture (op. cit., p. 349), “busts are the rarest of all forms of sculpted portraits in the German lands”. Among the earliest known examples of German portrait busts from the 16th century are the wooden half-figures that once surmounted the choir stalls of the Fugger Chapel in Augsburg, carved between 1512 and 1517 by Adolf Daucher (c.1460-1523) and his workshop (see Bushart, op. cit.). Much-restored during the nineteenth century, the majority of these were lost in the war, surviving only through photographs. Though they did not necessarily represent contemporary likenesses and are somewhat stylised, the busts are marked by an animated realism and sense of individuality, attesting to a new interest in portraiture at the dawn of the German Renaissance.
Perhaps the most prominent German sculptor of portrait busts was Conrat Meit (c.1480-1550), who however spent most of his career in the Southern Netherlands. Meit’s eclectic oeuvre includes some of the most celebrated Renaissance portraits in three dimensions, characterised by a minute attention to individual detail, as well as a level of idealisation. Prior to the arrival of Johann Gregor van der Schardt in the 1570s, however, portrait busts in Germany seem to have been relatively rare commissions, and very few survive. A notable example are a pair of lifesize limewood busts at the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum (inv. nos. R 919 and 920), showing two bald men, one bearded, facing the viewer. Formerly attributed to the Nuremberg medallist Matthes Gebel, they have most recently been catalogued as perhaps Augsburg, circa 1535/40, and are thought to represent posthumous portraits of rulers (see Eikelmann, op. cit., pp. 254-257, no. 70).
Despite the scarcity of comparable objects, the present bust clearly relates to similar survivals from the early 16th century. The wood is cut flat below the shoulders, allowing its placement on a flat surface such as a shelf or a desk. The bust is carved fully in the round and represents a man turning his head slightly to his left, with an alert gaze and a mild frown. He is dressed in a shirt with a cut silk band across the chest and a fur cloak covering his shoulders and back, and wears an elegantly inclined beret with two knot fastenings on each side. Represented in middle age, the man exhibits distinctive features, with high cheekbones, almond-shaped eyes, a long, slightly hooked nose, and a broad mouth. His carefully delineated hair is cut short above the earlobes, while his full beard extends in fine ripples beyond the sides of his face, ending flat below the chin. Creases in the skin are finely rendered in the face and at the back of the neck. Overall, the bust is characterised by its virtuosic carving and strikingly realistic appearance.
In its general form and realism, the bust recalls the miniature boxwood portraits of Margaret of Austria and Philibert of Savoy by Conrat Meit from around 1520. In the pair from the Waddesdon Bequest (British Museum, inv. no. Wad. 261), Philibert is portrayed in a similar manner, with his head turned, and dressed in almost identical clothing. The appearance of the eyes, with unincised pupils and pronounced eyelids, as well as the carving of small lines on the lower eyelids, also compare closely to the present bust. However, the treatment of details such as the fur differs, and despite being less than half the size of the present bust, the naturalistic detail in the faces of Meit’s portraits is arguably even more sophisticated. With regard to scale, a parallel with Meit’s polychromed pearwood bust of Jakob Fugger (Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, inv. no. L 2006/208) may be drawn. While precise stylistic comparisons do not allow for an attribution of the present bust to the court sculptor, it is likely that its creator was familiar with Meit’s work. The bust also finds parallels in the above-mentioned pair in the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum. Despite a more stylised appearance and ‘psychological’ focus, the busts in Munich, which are considerably larger than the present bust, exhibit an analogous treatment of facial features, such as in the eyebrows and cheekbones, and similarly incised lines on the forehead and lower eyelids. Another related bust is the boxwood miniature of a man monogrammed MP and dated 1527 in the Historisches Museum in Basel (Smith, op. cit., p. 351, fig. 312). Thought to be perhaps the work of the Nuremberg goldsmith Melchior Baier, the bust in Basel again mirrors the fine lines below the eyes and the two incisions forming a frown between the eyebrows, as well as exhibiting a closely comparable beret. However the carving is more angular and less effortlessly naturalistic than in the present bust.
The rarity of busts from the period necessitates a comparison with Southern German relief portraits, which survive in greater numbers. The square shape of the man’s beard, and his dress, find a parallel in a wood relief portrait of a Merchant by the so-called Master of Wolfgang Thenn of 1530, which is housed in Berlin (Smith, op. cit., p. 348, fig. 308). While again this representation is arguably more stylised than the present bust, another such portrait, Hans Schenck’s limewood relief of Tiedemann Giese of circa 1525-1530 (ibid., p. 347, fig. 307) approaches the present work in its naturalistic rendering of features. Moreover, Giese’s hairstyle is strikingly similar in both form and style of carving. Like this relief and most other wood sculptures from the German Renaissance, it is likely that the present bust was originally polychromed.
Perhaps the closest comparisons with the present bust may be drawn with German medals from the 1520s and 1530s, indicating that its sculptor could have been active as a medallist. Under the influence of humanist scholars in cultural centres such as Augsburg, German artists began to adopt the medium of the portrait medal in the 1510s, drawing on its popularity in Italy. Within the milieu of the Imperial Diet of 1518 at Augsburg, which gathered a variety of eminent figures in the Swabian city, the medallist Hans Schwarz (1492-1550) began his successful career as a portraitist, capturing the character and dignity of his sitters. Particular stylistic parallels to the present bust are seen in the medals of Christoph Weiditz (1498-1560), who was active in Augsburg and often depicted his sitters in frontal or three-quarter view, rather than in profile. The level of naturalism and the soft ripples of the beard in the present bust are repeated in Weiditz’s medal portrait of Wolfgang I. Count of Montford of 1530, of which there is an anonymous version in wood in the Württembergisches Landesmuseum in Stuttgart (Karlsruhe, op. cit., p. 593, nos. K49 and K50). Compare also the precisely stippled treatment of the fur in Weiditz’s portrait medal of Charles de Solier, whose boxwood model is at the Victoria and Albert Museum (inv. no. A.507-1910).
Following the 1518 Augsburg Diet, medallists continued to seek clients at the Imperial Diets of the 1520s and 1530s. It was there that Matthes Gebel, Hans Schwarz, and Friedrich Hagenauer received some of their commissions to produce portrait medals of Ludwig V., Elector Palatine (1508-1544). Significantly, these medals provide a compelling case for an identification of the sitter of the present bust. The majority show the German ruler in profile, with features, hair and beard that closely resemble those of the bust; note in particular the long wavy strands of the moustache (see Stemper, op. cit., pp. 8-14). Ludwig is similarly dressed in a shirt with a delicately frilled collar at the neck and a fur cloak. Though the hat worn by the Count in most medals is larger and sliced around the edge, he appears wearing a plainer hat in a painted portrait attributed to the circle of Peter Gertner at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna (fig. 1), indicating that he varied his headgear. The painting, seemingly depicting Ludwig as an old man, adds credence to the identification with regard to facial features – the high cheekbones, long nose, and thin, arched eyebrows strikingly resemble the man portrayed in the bust. The same may be observed in Friedrich Hagenauer’s medal portrait of 1532, which presents the ruler in three-quarter view (Stemper, op. cit., p. 10, no. 5).
As Prince Elector of the Palatinate, Ludwig V. oversaw a significant territory in the south-western part of Germany and held the privilege of being able to co-elect the Holy Roman Emperor. Known as ‘Der Friedfertige’ (The Pacifist), Ludwig negotiated the lifting of the Imperial Ban against the Palatinate, caused by the Landshut War of Succession, at the Augsburg Diet of 1518. A true Renaissance man, Ludwig composed a 12-volume treatise on medicine, commissioned major extensions of his Heidelberg Schloss, and cultivated an interest in music. If indeed the present bust represents Ludwig V., it is likely that it was commissioned as a ‘private’ memento rather than a public ruler image, as most of such small-scale Renaissance busts were. Displayed in a Kunstkammer setting, the bust would have served as a reminder of Ludwig’s erudition and character – his less ostentatious beret perhaps suggesting a humanist context. It is interesting that one of the few other surviving German portrait busts, or half-figures, from the second quarter of the 16th century is of Ludwig’s nephew, Ottheinrich, Prince Elector from 1556 until 1559. Although Dietrich Schro’s small alabaster portrait of Ottheinrich now in the Louvre (inv. no. OA 204) is rather different in form, it exhibits a similar level of partially stylised realism, while indicating that the Prince Elector of the Palatinate was one of only few high-status individuals afforded the privilege of a portrait in the round.
To quote Jeffrey Chipps Smith in his influential survey of German Renaissance sculpture (op. cit., p. 349), “busts are the rarest of all forms of sculpted portraits in the German lands”. Among the earliest known examples of German portrait busts from the 16th century are the wooden half-figures that once surmounted the choir stalls of the Fugger Chapel in Augsburg, carved between 1512 and 1517 by Adolf Daucher (c.1460-1523) and his workshop (see Bushart, op. cit.). Much-restored during the nineteenth century, the majority of these were lost in the war, surviving only through photographs. Though they did not necessarily represent contemporary likenesses and are somewhat stylised, the busts are marked by an animated realism and sense of individuality, attesting to a new interest in portraiture at the dawn of the German Renaissance.
Perhaps the most prominent German sculptor of portrait busts was Conrat Meit (c.1480-1550), who however spent most of his career in the Southern Netherlands. Meit’s eclectic oeuvre includes some of the most celebrated Renaissance portraits in three dimensions, characterised by a minute attention to individual detail, as well as a level of idealisation. Prior to the arrival of Johann Gregor van der Schardt in the 1570s, however, portrait busts in Germany seem to have been relatively rare commissions, and very few survive. A notable example are a pair of lifesize limewood busts at the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum (inv. nos. R 919 and 920), showing two bald men, one bearded, facing the viewer. Formerly attributed to the Nuremberg medallist Matthes Gebel, they have most recently been catalogued as perhaps Augsburg, circa 1535/40, and are thought to represent posthumous portraits of rulers (see Eikelmann, op. cit., pp. 254-257, no. 70).
Despite the scarcity of comparable objects, the present bust clearly relates to similar survivals from the early 16th century. The wood is cut flat below the shoulders, allowing its placement on a flat surface such as a shelf or a desk. The bust is carved fully in the round and represents a man turning his head slightly to his left, with an alert gaze and a mild frown. He is dressed in a shirt with a cut silk band across the chest and a fur cloak covering his shoulders and back, and wears an elegantly inclined beret with two knot fastenings on each side. Represented in middle age, the man exhibits distinctive features, with high cheekbones, almond-shaped eyes, a long, slightly hooked nose, and a broad mouth. His carefully delineated hair is cut short above the earlobes, while his full beard extends in fine ripples beyond the sides of his face, ending flat below the chin. Creases in the skin are finely rendered in the face and at the back of the neck. Overall, the bust is characterised by its virtuosic carving and strikingly realistic appearance.
In its general form and realism, the bust recalls the miniature boxwood portraits of Margaret of Austria and Philibert of Savoy by Conrat Meit from around 1520. In the pair from the Waddesdon Bequest (British Museum, inv. no. Wad. 261), Philibert is portrayed in a similar manner, with his head turned, and dressed in almost identical clothing. The appearance of the eyes, with unincised pupils and pronounced eyelids, as well as the carving of small lines on the lower eyelids, also compare closely to the present bust. However, the treatment of details such as the fur differs, and despite being less than half the size of the present bust, the naturalistic detail in the faces of Meit’s portraits is arguably even more sophisticated. With regard to scale, a parallel with Meit’s polychromed pearwood bust of Jakob Fugger (Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, inv. no. L 2006/208) may be drawn. While precise stylistic comparisons do not allow for an attribution of the present bust to the court sculptor, it is likely that its creator was familiar with Meit’s work. The bust also finds parallels in the above-mentioned pair in the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum. Despite a more stylised appearance and ‘psychological’ focus, the busts in Munich, which are considerably larger than the present bust, exhibit an analogous treatment of facial features, such as in the eyebrows and cheekbones, and similarly incised lines on the forehead and lower eyelids. Another related bust is the boxwood miniature of a man monogrammed MP and dated 1527 in the Historisches Museum in Basel (Smith, op. cit., p. 351, fig. 312). Thought to be perhaps the work of the Nuremberg goldsmith Melchior Baier, the bust in Basel again mirrors the fine lines below the eyes and the two incisions forming a frown between the eyebrows, as well as exhibiting a closely comparable beret. However the carving is more angular and less effortlessly naturalistic than in the present bust.
The rarity of busts from the period necessitates a comparison with Southern German relief portraits, which survive in greater numbers. The square shape of the man’s beard, and his dress, find a parallel in a wood relief portrait of a Merchant by the so-called Master of Wolfgang Thenn of 1530, which is housed in Berlin (Smith, op. cit., p. 348, fig. 308). While again this representation is arguably more stylised than the present bust, another such portrait, Hans Schenck’s limewood relief of Tiedemann Giese of circa 1525-1530 (ibid., p. 347, fig. 307) approaches the present work in its naturalistic rendering of features. Moreover, Giese’s hairstyle is strikingly similar in both form and style of carving. Like this relief and most other wood sculptures from the German Renaissance, it is likely that the present bust was originally polychromed.
Perhaps the closest comparisons with the present bust may be drawn with German medals from the 1520s and 1530s, indicating that its sculptor could have been active as a medallist. Under the influence of humanist scholars in cultural centres such as Augsburg, German artists began to adopt the medium of the portrait medal in the 1510s, drawing on its popularity in Italy. Within the milieu of the Imperial Diet of 1518 at Augsburg, which gathered a variety of eminent figures in the Swabian city, the medallist Hans Schwarz (1492-1550) began his successful career as a portraitist, capturing the character and dignity of his sitters. Particular stylistic parallels to the present bust are seen in the medals of Christoph Weiditz (1498-1560), who was active in Augsburg and often depicted his sitters in frontal or three-quarter view, rather than in profile. The level of naturalism and the soft ripples of the beard in the present bust are repeated in Weiditz’s medal portrait of Wolfgang I. Count of Montford of 1530, of which there is an anonymous version in wood in the Württembergisches Landesmuseum in Stuttgart (Karlsruhe, op. cit., p. 593, nos. K49 and K50). Compare also the precisely stippled treatment of the fur in Weiditz’s portrait medal of Charles de Solier, whose boxwood model is at the Victoria and Albert Museum (inv. no. A.507-1910).
Following the 1518 Augsburg Diet, medallists continued to seek clients at the Imperial Diets of the 1520s and 1530s. It was there that Matthes Gebel, Hans Schwarz, and Friedrich Hagenauer received some of their commissions to produce portrait medals of Ludwig V., Elector Palatine (1508-1544). Significantly, these medals provide a compelling case for an identification of the sitter of the present bust. The majority show the German ruler in profile, with features, hair and beard that closely resemble those of the bust; note in particular the long wavy strands of the moustache (see Stemper, op. cit., pp. 8-14). Ludwig is similarly dressed in a shirt with a delicately frilled collar at the neck and a fur cloak. Though the hat worn by the Count in most medals is larger and sliced around the edge, he appears wearing a plainer hat in a painted portrait attributed to the circle of Peter Gertner at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna (fig. 1), indicating that he varied his headgear. The painting, seemingly depicting Ludwig as an old man, adds credence to the identification with regard to facial features – the high cheekbones, long nose, and thin, arched eyebrows strikingly resemble the man portrayed in the bust. The same may be observed in Friedrich Hagenauer’s medal portrait of 1532, which presents the ruler in three-quarter view (Stemper, op. cit., p. 10, no. 5).
As Prince Elector of the Palatinate, Ludwig V. oversaw a significant territory in the south-western part of Germany and held the privilege of being able to co-elect the Holy Roman Emperor. Known as ‘Der Friedfertige’ (The Pacifist), Ludwig negotiated the lifting of the Imperial Ban against the Palatinate, caused by the Landshut War of Succession, at the Augsburg Diet of 1518. A true Renaissance man, Ludwig composed a 12-volume treatise on medicine, commissioned major extensions of his Heidelberg Schloss, and cultivated an interest in music. If indeed the present bust represents Ludwig V., it is likely that it was commissioned as a ‘private’ memento rather than a public ruler image, as most of such small-scale Renaissance busts were. Displayed in a Kunstkammer setting, the bust would have served as a reminder of Ludwig’s erudition and character – his less ostentatious beret perhaps suggesting a humanist context. It is interesting that one of the few other surviving German portrait busts, or half-figures, from the second quarter of the 16th century is of Ludwig’s nephew, Ottheinrich, Prince Elector from 1556 until 1559. Although Dietrich Schro’s small alabaster portrait of Ottheinrich now in the Louvre (inv. no. OA 204) is rather different in form, it exhibits a similar level of partially stylised realism, while indicating that the Prince Elector of the Palatinate was one of only few high-status individuals afforded the privilege of a portrait in the round.
Its similarities with medals by Christoph Weiditz and busts from the period, the man’s fashion and hairstyle, and the possible identity of its sitter, suggest an origin of the present bust in a Southern German artistic centre, probably Augsburg, during the 1520s or early 1530s. Although an attribution is difficult to ascertain considering the lack of immediately comparable objects, the remarkable quality and presence of the bust could only have been achieved by one of the leading sculptural talents of his time, an artist who may also have produced medals. Indeed, most of the above-mentioned medallists were known to be sculptors, though almost none of their works in the round survive. This extraordinary bust may provide a missing link in the oeuvre of these German Renaissance artists.
RELATED LITERATURE
T. Müller, Die Bildwerke in Holz, Ton und Stein von der Mitte des XV. bis gegen Mitte des XVI. Jahrhunderts, cat. Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich, 1959, p. 197; Die Renaissance im Deutschen Südwesten, exh. cat. Badisches Landesmuseum Karlsruhe, Heidelberger Schloss, Karlsruhe, 1986; B. Bushart, Die Fuggerkapelle bei St. Anna in Augsburg, Munich, 1994, pp. 290-306; J. C. Smith, German Sculpture of the Later Renaissance, c. 1520-1580: Art in an Age of Uncertainty, Princeton, 1994, pp. 317-357; A. Stemper, Die Medaillen der Pfalzgrafen und Kurfürsten bei Rhein: pfälzische Geschichte im Spiegel der Medaille, Worms, 1997; R. Eikelmann, Conrat Meit: Bildhauer der Renaissance, exh. cat. Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich, 2006
The present lot is offered with a Radiocarbon dating measurement report (ref. no. RCD-8603) prepared by J. Walker of RCD Lockinge, dated 20 April 2016, which states that the wood dates between 1429 and 1518 (95% confidence interval).