- Museum number
- 1956,0714.1
- Description
-
The Presentation in the Temple; the high priest in the act of handing back the infant Christ to the Virgin Mary, both kneel on either side of a table covered by a cloth, Joseph (carrying a basket in which are two doves) and a female attendant stand behind
Pen and black ink with grey wash and pink bodycolour, heightened with white; on blue prepared paper
- Production date
- 1475-1528
- Dimensions
-
Height: 181 millimetres
-
Width: 175 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- Summary 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. 25:
'The drawing is a copy by Bernhard Strigel of the outer side of the right wing of the former high altarpiece, probably made c. 1490-5, in the Catholic parish church in Bingen, near Sigmaringen (Augsburg, ‘Holbein’, p. 133, no. 129, pl. 136). This panel was executed by an assistant of Bartholomäus Zeitblom of Ulm (who painted the central panel of the altarpiece) probably the Master of the Pfullendorf Altar (see B. Bushart, ‘Zeitschr. f. Kunstgesch.’, xxi, 1958, p. 234), who gains his name from an altarpiece of c. 1500, now dispersed and partly destroyed (see ‘Katalog der Staatsgalerie Stuttgart’, Stuttgart, 1957, pp. 198f). Strigel's copy is a free interpretation of the painting, and contains only the main group of figures on the right. The draughtsman has created a greater sense of weight and volume than is perceived in the painting by treating the drapery in a more elaborate fashion and by making the bodies more rounded in shape. Following a suggestion of Winzinger's, Shestack first attributed the present drawing to Strigel on a stylistic basis without knowing its connection with the Bingen altarpiece. He compared the use of pink flesh tones with a dark-coloured prepared paper to a drawing dated 1503 in Berlin (Kupferstichkabinett, KdZ. 4256; see 'From Schongauer to Holbein: Master Drawings from Basel and Berlin', exh.cat. Washington National Gallery of Art, 1999, no. 24) and to two drawings in Venice which also display a similar use of white heightening. (Accademia, inv. nos. 474, 475; Otto, ‘Strigel’, pls. 167, 168)'.
Lit from Rowlands 1993: Augsburg, Holbein, p. 157, no. 179, pl. 191; A. Shestack, MD, iv, no. 1, 1966, pp. 21ff, pl. 15; E. Rettich, Studien f. K. Bauch, p. 107, fig. 6; G. Otto, Memminger Geschichts-blätter, Jahresheft 1967, 1969, p. 26, pl. 19; BM Dürer and Holbein, p. 35, no. 15, repr.
Additional lit: Iris Brahms, ' Zwischen Licht und Schatten: zur Tradition der Farbgrundzeichnung bis Albrecht Dürer', Paderborn, 2016, p. 126, illus. III.13.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
1988, July-Oct, BM, Age of Dürer & Holbein, no. 15
2006-7 Nov - Jan. BM, Nativity show (no cat.)
- Acquisition date
- 1956
- Acquisition notes
- See E.Croft-Murray's report to Trustees dated 26 June 1956. The drawing was seen by Campbell Dodgson in the possession of Miss Whiteley in 1923; he wrote to her that 'it would be well worthy of being added to the Museum collection', and this was thought to have prompted Miss Whiteley to bequeath it to the BM.
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1956,0714.1