Lot number 27 - Auction 165
BILDNIS DER BETENDEN MARIA AUS EINER VERKÜNDIGUNGSGRUPPE

MICHAEL WOLGEMUT (STUDIO) 1434 Nuremberg - 30 November 1519 ibid. PORTRAIT OF THE PRAYING VIRGIN MARY FROM AN ANNUNCIATION GROUP Tempera on softwood panel. 58 x 41 cm (F. 69 x 50 cm). Verso: Old inventory number '426'; furthermore inscribed on an old paper label '[...] im Jahr 149 [...] Albrecht Dürer 1471-1528'. Part. min. old rest., part. min. old retouching, paint surface with slight vertical cracks due to tension (infrared images enclosed). Frame. Accompanied by an expert opinion by Prof. Dr Fedja Anzelewski (Berlin, 26 February 2007). Anzelewski writes: "The painting technique in tempera noted by you indicates a date before Dürer. Dürer himself as well as his pupils used almost exclusively the new medium of oil paintingThe narrow face of the Virgin in your fragment points to the painting of the Late Gothic period. As far as my comparative material extends, the head of the Virgin belongs to the workshop of Michael Wolgemut, the teacher of Albrecht Dürer. Within this circle, the facial type of the Virgin appears repeatedly, for example in Wolgemut's own St Catherine Altarpiece of Levinus Memminger from 1485/86 in St Lorenz Church in Nuremberg. The same facial type is also encountered in various works by the most important painter before Dürer, the Master of the Nuremberg Augustinian Altarpiece, especially in the Augustinian Altarpiece itself of 1487 in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum. Finally, the painter of the Feuchtwangen Altarpiece of 1484, likewise in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, may also be considered as a possible author. The aforementioned works are all chronologically not far removed from Dürer's Berlin drawing of 1493/94. A more precise attribution of your fragment is hardly possible, as it offers too few points of reference." Report dated 31 August 2007 on the dendrochronological examination of the panel by Prof. Dr Peter Klein (Hamburg), who dates the softwood panel for the South German region chronologically between 1382 and 1452. He considers an execution from the year 1454 onwards to be possible. Furthermore accompanied by extensive photographic documentation on the iconographic development of representations of the Virgin's face up to Dürer.