Hans Rottenhammer the Elder

With Arnoldie-Livie, Munich, by 1998;

With Luca Baroni, London;

From whom acquired.

This composition repeats, with minor alterations to the angels and the immediate foreground, Rottenhammer's large-scale Adoration of the Shepherds of 1608 in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (inv. no. 1101).¹ By that year the artist had settled in Augsburg, after a lengthy stay in Venice, where he remained for the rest of his life, barring a brief excursion in 1609 to Bückeburg, near Hannover. There he worked for Count Ernst von Schaumburg, decorating the ceiling of the so-called Goldener Saal in the newly constructed Weser-Renaissance Schloss. Following his return to his homeland, Rottenhammer's figural style remained strongly rooted in Venice, and recalls Venetian prototypes in both pose and expression.

¹ See Die Gemäldegalerie des Kunsthistorischen Museums in Wien, Vienna 1991, p. 616, no. 1101.