Lot 73
  • 73

Attributed to Johann Heinrich Schönfeld Biberach an der Riss 1609 - 1682/3 Augsburg

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Description

  • Johann Heinrich Schönfeld
  • st ursula with her maiden companions embarking for a pilgrimage to rome
  • bears notes on the verso, in brown ink (mostly obscured by the blue backing sheet);
    pen and grey ink and wash

Catalogue Note

Though seeming in some ways a little retardataire for the Baroque artist Schönfeld, this drawing is nonetheless very similar in stylistic details to a drawing of Erminia discovers Tancred, in Chicago, which Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann has attributed to the artist (see T. DaCosta Kaufmanm, Drawings from the Holy Roman Empire: 1540-1680, exhibition catalogue, Princeton University Art Museum, 1982, cat. no. 84).  The Chicago drawing is particularly similar to this in the angular faces fo the figures, and the linear use of grey wash. 

The subject of this drawing is the moment when Saint Ursula, daughter of a king of Brittany, takes leave of her father outside the city walls and embarks with eleven thousand maiden companions on a pilgrimage to Rome.  They travelled by boat along the Rhine, stopping at Cologne and Basle.  It is far from clear whether or not Ursula actually existed, but according to the legend, she died alongside her companions in a massacre at Cologne, on her return from the Holy City.