Hans Rottenhammer the Elder

Possibly, M. Gaillard de Gagny;
Possibly, his sale, Paris, Remy, 29 March 1762, lot 31 (as Jean Rottenhammer, for 3610 livres, to Montribloud);
Don Ascanio, by October 1968 (according to labels on the reverse). 

Possibly, R.A. Peltzer, "Hans Rottenhammer," in Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des Allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses, vol. 33, 1916, p. 353.

The following condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This work has been restored, but the varnish is quite dull. The canvas is made from two pieces of linen joined horizontally through the center of the work, and it has been lined with a non-wax adhesive. The paint layer is stable. It does not show any real signs of previous abrasion, and many of the details in the still life, table and foliage around the figures are well preserved. Under ultraviolet light, one can see retouches here and there throughout the composition. The retouches are fairly well applied. A few tiny retouches have been added in the lower right, and there are some unrestored losses here. The texture of the work has numerous tiny pits to the paint layer, and these may have given rise to some of the retouches. If the work were lightly cleaned and varnished, it could be hung in its current condition.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

This impressive canvas was completed in Venice around 1600 by Hans Rottenhammer, a German artist who traveled to Italy around the turn of the seventeenth century.  Although trained in Munich under the court painter Hans Donauer, his most formative training arose from studying the grand works of Tintoretto, Veronese and Palma Giovane in Venice, where he spent a lengthy and successful sojourn from 1591-1606, broken only by a brief Roman excursion from 1594-1595.  Rottenhammer would later settle back in his native Bavaria, but his style, though German at its core, would remain strongly rooted in Italy, particularly in Venice, until the end of his career.    On his brief trip to Rome, Rottenhammer met the Flemings Paul Bril and Jan Brueghel the Elder, two artists with whom he would later collaborate and who, like Rottenhammer, found great success in working on small format cabinet pictures.  Rottenhammer's reputation for working in this small format was widespread during his lifetime, Rudolf II being one of the most prized collectors of such works, but his undeniable talent also found its way, albeit very rarely, onto the large scale format of the present canvas.  Such examples are relatively unique within his body of work, and only a few others of comparable dimensions are known, most of which seem to have also arisen during his Venetian period such as a canvas dated 1603 of Minerva and the Muses in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nürnberg,¹ a canvas dated 1597 of the Rape of the Sabines now in a private collection,² and a canvas depicting the Banquet of the Gods sold at Sotheby's London 3 July 1997 as lot 66.³  

While Rottenhammer returned to the theme of the Feast of the Gods on a number of occasions, he most often approached it in a much smaller format.  The present composition, in fact, is also known by way of a small autograph variant on copper now in a private collection⁴ and can be closely compared to Rottenhammer’s celebrated copper of the same subject dated 1600 and now in the Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg.⁵

The present work is very possibly the Göttermahl on canvas listed by Peltzer (see Literature) as formerly being in the Gaillard de Gagny collection.  The dimensions Peltzer lists are only slightly smaller than this painting, a difference that could possibly explained by measuring the front of the painting while in its frame.⁶  



1.  Inv. no. GM1591, oil on canvas, 186.5 by 308.8 cm. See A. Tacke, Die Gemälde des 17. Jahrhunderts im Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nürnberg 1995, pp. 205-208, cat. no. 101, reproduced fig. 151 and color plate 73.
2.  Oil on canvas, 152.4 by 210.8 cm, see H. Borggrefe, Hans Rottenhamer: begehrt - vergessen - neu entdeckt, exhibition catalogue, Munich 2008, p. 118, cat. no. 24, reproduced.
3.  Oil on canvas, 169 by 224.8 cm.  Two altarpieces on canvas of larger dimensions—370 by 230 and 342 by 220 cm—are recorded in the Allerheiligenkirche am Kreuz in Munich. See Peltzer 1916, p. 348, cat. nos. 60-61.
4.  Oil on copper, 50.8 by 71.2 cm.  See ibid., p. 22, reproduced fig. 30.
5.  Inv. no. 688, oil on copper, 34 by 45 cm.  See Ibid., pp. 141-143, cat. no. 44, reproduced p. 142.
6.  Peltzer lists the measurements as 4 pouces 6pieds by 6 pouces 5 pieds, which is roughly 137 by 196 cm.