- Museum number
- 1997,0712.5
- Description
-
An old man, perhaps Jesse, asleep on the ground. c.1490
Pen and brown ink over traces of black chalk; strengthened in parts in a darker coloured ink, possibly by Sebald Büheler.
- Production date
- 1480s (c.)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 125 millimetres
-
Width: 200 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- Lit: 'Old Master Drawings' exh.cat. London, Colnaghi, no. 6; R. Schilling (ed) 'Die von Edmund Schilling gesammelten Zeichnungen', published privately, Edgware, 1982, p.53, no.19; C. Andersson, 'From a Mighty Fortress: Prints, Drawings and Books in the Age of Luther 1483 - 1546', published in connection with an exhibition at Detroit, Ottawa and Coburg, 1981-2, Detroit, 1983, p.389; J. Rowlands 'German Drawings from a private collection', exh.cat London and Nuremberg, 1984, p.13, no.6; 19; M.Roth, unpublished dissertation, 'Die Zeichnungen des 'Meisters der Coburger Rundblätter', Berlin, 1988, no. 38
Roth likens the style of this with a drawing in Coburg, 'Christ praying in Gethsemane' (Z.223). It belongs to a group of drawings by the artist, of which the 'Adoration of the Magi' also in Coburg (Andersson cat. no. 28) is another example, in which the treatment of hatched areas of shadow and the heavy outlines of drapery is similar. The subject of the Tree of Jesse is known from Strassburg glass-paintings, although this is not directly connected with those of the 1470s which have survived. The thin tube-like forms of the drapery are seen in earlier Ulm glass-paintings.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
1952 London, Colnaghi, 'Old Master Drawings'
1984 Feb-Sept, London, Washington and Nuremberg, German Drawings, no.6.
1997-8 Sept-Jan BM Schilling
- Acquisition date
- 1997
- Acquisition notes
- In 1997, the Museum acquired on the death of Mrs Rosi Schilling the majority of a collection of mostly northern Old Master drawings assembled by her late husband the curator and later drawings dealer and adviser, Edmund Schilling (1888-1974). Schilling was born in Germany and came to Britain in 1937 after the rise of the Nazis. He was prominent as a specialist in German Old Master drawings and his widow’s bequest in his memory was predominantly made up of studies that he had collected in this field. Given its importance, the Museum accepted the bequest for public benefit in good faith, and has afterwards researched its history, insofar as it has been able. There remain however many works in the bequest with uncertain or incomplete provenance for the years 1933-45.
According to Schilling's personal records, he saw this drawing in Rotterdam in the Koenigs Collection before the war, though it has not been published in the related missing old master drawings catalogue by Elen (Albert J. Elen, Missing Old Master Drawings from the Franz Koenigs Collection, The Hague: SDU Publishers, The Netherlands Office for Fine Arts, 1989). It is therefore likely that this drawing formed part of the 'second' Koenigs collection (1935-1941) which was hidden in Koenigs' apartment in Berlin during the war and given in custody to the art dealer Cassirer in Amsterdam. This collection was then distributed between the five Koenigs children in the 1950s (See: A. J. Elen, Missing Old Master Drawings from the Franz Koenigs Collection, p. 13).
It appeared in Colnaghi's catalogue of 1952, no.6, as the Master of the Coburg Roundels.
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1997,0712.5
