- Museum number
- 1949,0411.111
- Description
-
Portrait of Friedrich, Markgraf von Brandenburg-Ansbach; head and shoulders, turned and looking slightly to right, his hat, beard and pendants loosely drawn
Pen and brown ink, with the face, beard and hair finished in oils
Verso: Outline sketch of a male portrait head
Pen and brown ink
- Production date
- 1527-1536 (circa)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 398 millimetres
-
Width: 303 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- Edited from J.Rowlands 'Drawings by German Artists and Artists from German-speaking regions of Europe in the Department of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum: the Fifteenth Century, and the Sixteenth Century by Artists born before 1530', London, BM Press, 1993, no. 287:
This drawing comes from a series of portrait drawings mainly of the Wittelbachs and their relatives, which was dispersed sometime before Dodgson acquired the drawing in 1926. Dodgson attributed the drawing to Cranach, but it is one of a series of portrait drawings by Gärtner The sitter, evidently drawn towards the end of his life, had been deposed by his sons in 1515, and confined at Plassenburg; he was released in 1527 and died at Ansbach in 1536. Other sheets from the series are all portrait drawings in the same technique. They include two in the Louvre, Paris, 'Herzog Wilhelm IV von Bayern' and 'Jakobä, Herzogin von Bayern' numbered No. 17 and No. 18 respectively (Demonts, 'Louvre', i, p. 39, nos. 196, 197, repr.) Two further sheets from the series, numbered No. 12 and No. 13, and dated 1539, are much restored and laid on a canvas backing (Washington, DC, National Gallery of Art, inv. nos. 1175, 1176); show portraits of 'Friedrich III Der Fromme' (Kürfurst from 1559) and Maria, first wife of Friedrich III. Further drawings from the series include: the portrait of 'Pfalzgraf Ottheinrich', on the Paris art market in 1928 (J. Seligmann et Fils; see 'Pantheon', ii, 1928, pp. 364-5, repr.) who is also represented in two other drawings, one formerly with Lucien Goldschmidt, Inc., New York, and the other, of his face only, formerly in the Randall collection in Montreal (sale, Sotheby, 1961, 10 May, lot 9); a drawing of Ottheinrich's wife, 'Susanna von Bayern' (at the Kunsthaus Malmedé, Cologne in 1935; see 'Pantheon', xvi, 1935, p. 418); possibly another version of this was formerly in the Koenigs Collection (Elen, 'Koenigs', p. 120, no. 186); a portrait of 'Philipp, Herzog in Bayern, Bishop of Freising and Naumberg' formerly in the collection of Henry Oppenheimer (sale, Christie, 1936, 10, 13 and 14 July, lot 375); a portrait of 'Pfalzgraf Wolfgang von Bayern-Kurpfalz' which was on the London market (sale, Christie, 1962, 30 March, lot 67) and later at Bern (Kornfeld & Klipstein, Auktion 114, 1965, 16 June, lot 42); and a portrait of 'Berthold, Graf zu Heimberg or Heimsberg' formerly in the Koenigs Collection (Elen, 'Koenigs', p. 120, no. 185, repr.).
Lit. from Rowlands 1993: Girshausen, p. 94; Fudickar, p. 161, no. 114; BM Portrait Drawings, p. 8, no. 11, repr.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
1974 July-Dec, BM, Portrait Drawings, no.11
- Acquisition date
- 1949
- Acquisition notes
- Dodgson's inventory card attributes the drawing to Lucas Cranach I and states: 'It was with a set of portrait drawings by Peter Gärtner, but is certainly not by the same hand. When taken out of its frame on 21 Oct. 1943 the drawing (size of paper 40 x 30.5cm) was found to be backed with later paper, through which a sketch of a large head could be dimly seen on the back of the original drawing, the other way up from the drawing on front; perhaps a first sketch, abandoned, for the Margrave.'
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1949,0411.111
