drawing
- Museum number
- SL,5218.177
- Description
-
Ornamental tympanum with the arms of Cardinal Lang von Wellenburg for the top of a doorway
Pen and black ink, heightened with white; on brown-yellow prepared paper
- Production date
- 1519-1540 (circa)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 118 millimetres
-
Width: 205 millimetres
- Curator's comments
- Summary of 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. 103:
'According to Dodgson's advice to Parker, it was Dörnhoffer who first advanced the attribution of this drawing to Burgkmair, a view which Parker accepted. Neither Halm nor Falk later included it among the drawings they attributed to Burgkmair. The design discloses many Italian traits, including the ornamentation of the moulding of the curved rim of the arched top and the type of putto with disc-like haloes, and it is very likely that it either records an Italian design, or was inspired by one. Judging from the manner of execution and the medium, there seems little doubt that it was executed by a German, although the pen-work is quite unlike Burgkmair's distinctive hand. The coat of arms surmounted with a cardinal's hat and cross-staff show the arms of Matthäus Lang von Wellenburg on the quartered arms of Salzburg and Gurk. Lang was created a cardinal deacon on 24 November 1512 and was elected as coadjutor to the ruling Archbishop of Salzburg in 1514, when he was Bishop of Gurk. This suggests that the form of arms seen here belong to the period from his acting as coadjutor to his consecration as Archbishop of Salzburg on 24 September 1519.'
Additional information: Falk has suggested that this could be a design for a title-page, rather than a doorway ( T. Falk, 'Burlington Magazine', May, 1995, p.325)
Lit from Rowlands: Hausmann, Naumann's Archiv, p. 41, no. 177; Hausmann, p. 122, no. 153; Thausing, ii, p. 154; K. Parker, in Buchner, Beiträge, ii, pp. 208, 217ff.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1753
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- SL,5218.177
- Additional IDs
-
Miscellaneous number: C,07.177
