Nicolas Neufchatel

Portrait of a lady, possibly Margaretha Mertha, wife of Hendrik Pilgram, three-quarter length, wearing black with gold chains

VAT reduced rate

Lot Closed

April 6, 01:03 PM GMT

Estimate

15,000 - 20,000 GBP

Lot Details

Description

The Property of a European Private Collector

Nicolas Neufchatel

Active Antwerp and Nuremberg, 1539-1573

Portrait of a lady, possibly Margaretha Mertha, wife of Hendrik Pilgram, three-quarter length, wearing black with gold chains

oil on panel

unframed: 100.9 x 80.1 cm.; 39¾ x 31½ in.

framed: 115.2 x 92 cm.; 45⅜ x 36¼ in.

Anonymous sale, Berlin, Jacob Hecht, 26–27 May 1925, lot 617;
A.G. collection, Hamburg;
Whence sold, Berlin, Rudolph Lepke, 16 November 1926, lot 72;
Acquired at auction in Germany, probably in the 1980s, lot 156 (where identified as the wife of Hendrik Pilgram), by a private collector, Heidelberg;
From whom acquired, in the 1980s, by the present owner.

R.A. Peltzer, 'Nicolas Neufchatel und seine Nürnberger Bildnisse', in Münchner Jahrbuch der bildenden Kunst, vol. III, 1926, p. 229, no. 7 (under 'Doubtful attributions', as 'very close to Neufchatel', on the basis of a poor image).¹

Nicolas Neufchatel was a Netherlandish artist who trained in Antwerp under Pieter Coecke van Aelst (1502–50), but was later active in Germany, and became the most important portraitist to the Nuremberg elite during the 1560s and early 1570s.

Two of Neufchatel's finest works are the full-length portraits of the merchant Hans Hendrik Pilgram and his wife, Margaretha Mertha, painted in 1561, today in the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest (inv. nos 346 and 348).² The present portrait has previously been identified as a likeness of Margharetha Mertha, depicted at a more advanced age than the young lady in the Budapest work. In any case, the lady portrayed here is clearly of an elevated social status, indicated by the fine gold chains – for which Nuremberg goldsmiths were famed – and the ornate, jewelled rings that she wears.

We are grateful to Professor Jeffrey Chipps Smith for endorsing the attribution to Neufchatel on the basis of digital images.

¹ When listed in his article of 1926, Peltzer wrote of this painting that it appeared to be very close to Neufchatel, but that the poor image he had seen (presumably from the Hecht sale catalogue in 1925), precluded a firm conclusion as to the attribution.

² https://www.mfab.hu/artworks/portrait-of-hans-heinrich-pilgram/; and https://www.mfab.hu/artworks/portrait-of-margaretha-mertha-merthen-the-wife-of-heinrich-pilgram/