Saxony circa 1500/1510 - A Saxon carved wood Calvary group, circa 1500/1510 - image-1
Saxony circa 1500/1510 - A Saxon carved wood Calvary group, circa 1500/1510 - image-2
Saxony circa 1500/1510 - A Saxon carved wood Calvary group, circa 1500/1510 - image-1Saxony circa 1500/1510 - A Saxon carved wood Calvary group, circa 1500/1510 - image-2

Lot 1012 Dα

Saxony circa 1500/1510 - A Saxon carved wood Calvary group, circa 1500/1510

Auction 1029 - overview Cologne
17.05.2014, 11:00 - The Hofstätter Collection
Estimate: 180.000 € - 200.000 €
Result: 244.000 € (incl. premium)

Saxony circa 1500/1510

A Saxon carved wood Calvary group, circa 1500/1510

Lindenwood, carved from two blocks, the reverse flattened and partially hollowed out. With original polychromy and gilt.
With two vertical cracks to the lower edge and wear with minor losses. 135 x 75.5 cm.

An exceedingly well carved high relief - Saxonian around 1500/1510 - with an openwork upper section depicting mourning figures beneath the cross. To the left we see the Virgin kneeling exhausted upon the ground, accompanied by two women, the youthful figure of Saint John and Saint Veronica displaying her veil. Mary Magdalene kneels to the right and looks up towards the crucified Christ, as do the soldiers depicted behind her. The relief is thus recognisable as a fragment and the left side of a depiction of Calvary which would have been located in the center of a large winged altarpiece.
Neither the original location of the altarpiece nor the whereabouts of the remaining pieces are known, but the style of the relief and especially of the facial features all point to an origin in Saxony. The leading carver of the time in this area was the Master H.W., who in the past was erroneously brought into connection with the name "Hans Witten", although his actual identity remains a mystery to this day. The following signed works can be attributed with certainty to this master: The "Schöne Tür" in Annaberg, the Borna altarpiece and the sculpture of Saint Helen in Halle, which means he must have been active in Saxony between 1500 and 1520. The maker of the present important work is surely to be sought in this master's circle.
The relief's provenance pre 1945 is uncertain. According to a statement by Walter Bornheim from 2.9.1955 (Restitutionskartei, Bundesarchiv Koblenz, B323/658 & 516), the piece was sold by the Bornheim art dealership to Hermann Göring on an unknown date. It is not known where Bornheim himself acquired the work, as he mentioned on the same day with some uncertainty that the work was purchased in "ca. 1938/1938 from Lempertz (?) in Cologne (form. the Vieweg collection, Brunswick)." However, this debatable statement regarding the purchase from Lempertz could not be proven, and despite intensive research, no evidence has been found connecting the work to the Vieweg collection. The complete list of the Berlin art historian Wilhelm von Bode's collection from 1910 has not been found, and there is no trace of the piece in Lepke of Berlin's "Sammlung Vieweg" auction from 18.3.1930, or in the "Nachlass Helene Tepelmann geb. Vieweg" auction of the estate of Helene Vieweg held by Lempertz in Cologne on 1.-2.2.1940. However, if the relief actually originates from the Vieweg collection, it may have been in the possession of the "Aktiengesellschaft Friedr. Vieweg & Sohn" or Helene Tepelmann, who died in 1939. In order to further clarify the provenance of the piece we have submitted it to the "Lostart" database run by the Koordinierungsstelle Magdeburg.

We would like to thank Dr. Ilse von zur Mühlen (Staatliche Museen München, provenance research) for the insight into the results of her latest research.

Provenance

Kunsthandlung Walter Bornheim, Munich (1938/1939?, according to Walter Bornheim, the relief was formerly part of the Vieweg collection, Braunschweig). - Purchased from Bornheim by Hermann Göring (Göring-Holzplastik-Katalog no. H 74). - Central Collecting Point, Munich no. 6082 (27.7.1945). - The estate of Hermann Göring (1946). - Submitted to the trusteeship of the Bavarian minister president through the general director of the Bayerischen Staatsgemäldesammlungen Munich (10.6.1949). - Treuhandverwaltung für Kulturgut (trusteeship for cultural heritage, 1952. – Handed over to the ownership of the Free State of Bavaria according to an agreement between the Federal Republic of Germany and the Free State of Bavaria from 06.12.1960, and subsequently transferred to the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlung by the above mentioned trusteeship for cultural heritage. – Henceforth transferred from the ownership of the Free State of Bavaria to the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum in Munich, inv. no. 61/41 (23.5.1961). – Transferred to Kunsthandel Hofstätter as part of a swap (23.4.1975) with no records of provenance.

Literature

For the master H.W. and late gothic Saxon sculpture in general, cf.: Walter Hentschel: Hans Witten. Der Meister H. W., Leipzig 1938. - Ferdinand Stuttmann, Gert von der Osten: Niedersächsische Bildschnitzerei des späten Mittelalters, Berlin 1940, p. 15-18 illus. - Gert von der Osten: Das Frühwerk des Hans Witten. In: Jahrbuch der Preußischen Kunstsammlungen, vol. 63, 1942, p. 90-104. - Simona Schellenberger: Bildwerke des Meisters HW. Entwicklungen der spätgotischen Skulptur zwischen Raumkonstruktion und Graphik, phil. diss. Humboldt-Universität Berlin 2005 (download link: www.edoc.hu-berlin.de/dissertationen/schellenberger-simona-2005-05-02/PDF/schellenberger.pdf).