After Hans Memling

An angel with a psaltery; An angel with a fiddle

Lot Closed

January 28, 03:01 PM GMT

Estimate

8,000 - 12,000 USD

Lot Details

Description

Property from the Collection of Jacques Goudstikker

After Hans Memling

An angel with a psaltery;

An angel with a fiddle

a pair, both oil on panel

each panel: 9½ by 4¾ in.; 24 by 12 cm.

each framed: 10½ by 5¾ in.; 26.7 by 14.6 cm.

(2)

Marquis de Valderey, Madrid (according to Goudstikker records);

With L. Blumenreich and Jacques Goudstikker (jointly owned), Amsterdam, before April 1930;

Looted by Hermann Göring, Amsterdam, 29 June 1940;

Seized by the Allies and transported to the 101st Aircraft Component Storage, Unterstein, before August 1945, from where the pair were stolen;

Consigned for sale, Thomaston, Maine, Thomaston Place Auction Galleries, 11 May 2011, lot 236;

Thereafter restituted to the heirs of Jacques Goudstikker.

Catalogue des Nouvelles Acquisitions de la Collection Goudstikker, Amsterdam 1930, cat. nos. 32c and 32d, reproduced (as Hans Memling);
Catalogus der tentoonstelling van schilderijen en antiquiteiten: geexposeerd door den Kunsthandel J. Goudstikker in de zalen van den Rotterdamschen Kunstkring, p. 15, cat. no. 37, reproduced (as Hans Memling);
A.P. de Mirimonde, "Les anges musiciens chez memling," in Jaarboek van het Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp 1962/1963, pp. 49-50, reproduced fig. 33 (as School of Memling);
G.T. Faggin, in L'opera completa di Memling, Milan 1969, p. 101, cat. no. 35 (as modest copies, possibly from the 16th century);
D. De Vos, Hans Memling, Antwerp 1994, pp. 292-293, under cat. no. 81, note 8.

Amsterdam, Nouvelles acquisitions de la collection Goudstikker, April - May 1930, nos. 32c and 32d (as Hans Memling);
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, Tentoonstelling Oude Kunst uit het bezit van den internationalen Handel, July - September 1936, no. 106;
Rotterdam, Rotterdamschen Kunstkring, Tentoonstelling van schilderijen en antiquiteiten: geexposeerd door den Kunsthandel J. Goudstikker, 17 December 1936 - 10 January 1937, no. 37 (as Hans Memling);
Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum, Gedenckklanck, 1938;
Bruges, Het Stedelijk Museum te Brugge, Memling Tentoonstelling, 22 June - 1 October 1939, no. 44.

These music-making angels, one holding a psaltery and the other a fiddle, relate to the outermost figures on the wings of a large altarpiece painted by Hans Memling in about 1487-1490, according to De Vos.¹ Those wings, along with a central panel of Christ as Salvator Mundi, were originally part of a large altarpiece complex in the church of the Benedictine monastery of Santa Maria la Real in Najera, Castile, but all three panels are today in the Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp (inv. no. 779).

The present works were once part of a set of four, alongside two panels showing two additional angels also playing stringed instruments, one a harp² and the other a lute.³ Prior to entering the Goudstikker collection, all four panels formed part of the Madrid collection of the Marquis de Valderey.

1. De Vos 1994, pp. 287-293, cat. no. 81, reproduced. RKD entry no. 216241. https://rkd.nl/explore/images/216241.

2. RKD entry no. 27798. https://rkd.nl/explore/images/27798.

3. RKD entry no. 27799. https://rkd.nl/en/explore/images/27799.