Master Works on Paper from Five Centuries

Friedrich Christoph Steinhammer

Minerva and the Muses

Auction Closed

January 31, 05:59 PM GMT

Estimate

15,000 - 20,000 USD

Lot Details

Description

Attributed to Friedrich Christoph Steinhammer

Active in Nuremberg in the 17th Century

Minerva and the Muses

Pen and brown ink and wash over black chalk;

bears numbering in pen and brown ink, verso: #4

218 by 310 mm; 5 ½ by 12 ¼ in.

We are most grateful to Monroe Warshaw for pointing out that the composition of a print of The Muses with Cupid, by Bartholomeus Willemsz. Dolendo, after Bartolomeus Spranger, corresponds, in reverse, to half of the composition of the present drawing, and for guiding us to the reference to the present drawing in the entry on the Dolendo print, in the catalogue to the 2014-15 Metropolitan Museum Spranger exhibition. He has also brought to our attention several other versions of the composition, all presumably derived more or less closely from an original Spranger prototype. Additional Literature: Sally Metzler, Bartholomeus Spranger. Splendor and Eroticism in Imperial Prague, exh. cat., New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2014-15, p. 310, under cat. 197

With Colnaghi, London and New York, 1992, cat. 19 (as Johann Rottenhammer);

with Jean-Luc-Baroni, New York, 2008, cat. 6 (as Johann Rottenhammer)

Hans Rottenhammer, exhib. cat., Lemgo and Prague, 2004, p. 141, fig. 191 (as attributed to Friedrich Christoph Steinhammer)

Though previously considered a drawing by Hans (Johann) Rottenhammer (c. 1564-1625), Heiner Borggrefe proposed, in the 2004 exhibition catalogue (see Literature), that it is instead the work of Rottenhammer's close associate, Friedrich Christoph Steinhammer. Securely attributable drawings by Steinhammer are not known, but a signed and dated 1615 painting depicting Diana and Acteon is in Prague.¹

1. Prague, National Gallery, inv. DO 4138; see exh. cat., op. cit., 2004, cat. 39

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