Property from a Distinguished Private Collection

Circle of Adam Elsheimer

Salome receiving the head of Saint John the Baptist

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Estimate

5,000 - 7,000 GBP

Lot Details

Description

Property from a Distinguished Private Collection


Circle of Adam Elsheimer 

Salome receiving the head of Saint John the Baptist


oil on copper

unframed: 24 x 19.3 cm.; 9½ x 7⅝ in.

framed: 31 x 26.3 cm.; 12¼ x 10⅜ in.

Private collection, Vienna;

Anonymous sale, Vienna, Dorotheum, 5 October 2005, lot 405.

R. Klessman in Adam Elsheimer 1578–1610, R. Klessman (ed.), exh. cat., Edinburgh and London 2006, p. 146, no. 28, reproduced in colour on p. 147 (as a copy after Adam Elsheimer).

Frankfurt, Städelsches Kunstinstitut und Städtische Galerie, Edinburgh, National Gallery of Scotland and London, Dulwich Picture Gallery, Devil in the Detail: The Paintings of Adam Elsheimer (1578–1610), 17 March – 5 June 2006, 23 June – 3 September 2006 and 20 September – 3 December 2006, no. 28 (as a copy after Adam Elsheimer).

This composition recalls a lost prototype by Adam Elsheimer (1578–1610), best known today from an engraving by Hendrick Goudt (1583–1648).1 The present painting was probably based on Elsheimer's original rather than Goudt's print, which is rendered in reverse, unlike the picture in the Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, which is in the same sense as the engraving.2


An autograph gouache at Chatsworth is loosely related to this design and may have served as a preliminary study for the lost painting.3 It differs from the present composition in that there are six figures, rather than five, and the executioner is not depicted holding a large sword, as here.


1 Engraving, 65 x 51 mm.; K. Andrews, Adam Elsheimer: Paintings – Drawings – Prints, Oxford 1977, under no. 48, reproduced fig. 94. Wenceslaus Hollar (1607–1677) also produced an etching after this composition in 1646.

2 Inv. no. KMS559; oil on copper, 14.8 x 10.8 cm.; https://open.smk.dk/en/artwork/image/KMS559?q=Elsheimer&page=2.

3 Inv. no. 851C; gouache, 78 x 67 mm.; Andrews 1977, p. 162, no. 48, reproduced fig. 93.

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