Gabriel Hornstain Active circa 1640

Bremen, Kunsthalle, and Zürich, Kunsthaus, Handzeichnungen Alter Meister aus Schweizer Privatbesitz, 1967, cat. no. 9, reproduced

As Werner Sumowski wrote in the 1967 exhibition catalogue, Heinrich Geissler and Friedrich Thöne both noted that the same monogram is to be found on a series of 12 drawings representing the Passion, and also on one of The Adoration of the Magi, in Berlin.  All these drawings, and also the present sheet, are stylistically comparable with another drawing representing the twelve-year-old Christ in the Temple, also in Berlin, which is fully signed and dated: Gabriel Hornstain Ao 1639 (see E. Bock, Zeichnungen Deutscher Meister im Kupferstichkabinett zu Berlin, Berlin 1921, p. 194, no. 10 258). Bock believed these drawings were made as designs for glass panels, while Thöne thought they were for small fresco paintings.  No details of the artist's life or career are known.