Lot 1126 Dα

Whilst the apprenticeship of the Nuremberger Johann König in Augsburg can only be surmised, his stays in Venice (1609) and Rome (1610-1614) have been affirmed. In Italy König received important inspiration for his artistic development, as his junior painter colleagues Johann List and Johan Heinrich Schönfeld would do slightly later. The works of Adam Elsheimer, who died in the year of König's arrival in Rome, are particularly worth mentioning here. In 1614 Johann König moved from Rome to Augsburg, where it has been verified that he stayed until 1629, before spending the rest of his life in his birth town of Nuremburg.
Whilst producing series of large format canvas pictures, for example for the decoration of the Augsburg town hall, the artists's oeuvre is particularly characterised by his small format copper pictures. His brilliant painting style and minute attention to detail had already attracted the admiration of his contemporaries. The present painting ''The Resurrection of Christ'' is comparable, also in terms of quality, to König's depiction of ''All Saints'', today held in the German Baroque Gallery of the Schaezler Palace in Augsburg. In both pictures, the dense composition is impressive, as well as the masterly depiction of twisting bodies and the rich, Mannerist-influenced atmosphere. The luminosity of the colours achieve a particular brilliance by König's use of copper plate, which he chose to use for many other of his works.
We would like to thank Gode Krämer, Augsburg, for his assistance in the cataloguing of this painting which will be inlcluded in his upcoming catalogue raisonné of this artist.