Lot 1003 D α

This portrait shows a distinguished gentleman in front of a window with a view of a landscape. The fur-lined coat, the black bonnet and the signet ring indicate his high social status. Part of the original framing has been incorporated into the more modern frame, revealing the identity of the sitter. He is the Cologne citizen Marten Imhoff. Formally and stylistically, the portrait combines the characteristic features of the art of the Cologne painter Barthel Bruyn - as can be seen, for example, by comparing it with the portrait of Arnold von Brauweiler with a similar frame inscription (Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Cologne). In the 19th century, the Imhoff portrait was owned by the Cologne art historian Johann Jacob Merlot. Since then and until the middle of the 20th century, it was considered to be an autograph work by Barthel Bruyn the Elder and was included as such in the catalogue raisonné of 1955. However, at that time it had only been recorded in a photograph, as it was not known that it was now in a private collection in Vienna.
Our painting has a remarkable connection to a portrait of the mayor Arnold von Brauweiler (1468-1552) attributed to Barthel Bruyn the Elder (Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Cologne). Both paintings are easily comparable in terms of format, composition, costume and attributes. With a difference of only a few millimetres, the wooden panels with their moulded upper sides are identical. The frame around the Brauweiler portrait even bears a similar inscription stating that the sitter is ‘HER ARNOLT VA[N] BROWILLER BUGEMEISTER ZO COELLE[N] AETATIS 62 A° 1535’. In addition, both paintings lack the typical flat backgrounds that can be seen in most of Bruyn's portraits.
Marten Imhoff was born in 1468, the son of the silk merchant Martin Imhoff and his wife Katherina von Starkenburg. He married Elisabeth Lützenkirchen in 1495. Between 1506 and 1524, he was a member of the Cologne City Council several times. Active as a (metal) merchant in Cologne, Marten frequently travelled to Antwerp and London. Apart from the inscription on the frame, the signet ring also reveals his identity. There were family connections between Arnold Brauweiler and Marten Imhoff.



In 2008, the portrait of Marten Imhoff appeared on the auction market. Dr Kurt Löcher was consulted on this occasion. On the basis of a photograph, he described it as the work of a ‘South Netherlandish painter ca. 1527’. Barthel Bruyn's paintings are rarely signed and there is no recent publication of his complete oeuvre after 1955.