Lot Essay
Christie’s is honored to offer this lot on behalf of the heirs of Ralph von Klemperer (1884-1956), by whom it was sold to fund his family’s escape from Nazi Germany. Hailing from a prominent German-Jewish banking family, Ralph was a member of supervisory boards of various commercial and industrial organizations in Dresden. He also co-founded the Dresden Rotary Club. His wife, Lili, was the daughter of Oskar Huldschinsky, an iron and coal mining industrialist who became a major art collector and patron, acquiring works by Old Masters and modern artists such as Tiepolo, Botticelli, Rodin, and Degas. Together, Ralph and Lili would continue this tradition, likewise putting together a notable art collection, including the present panels by Bartholomäus Bruyn I, which Ralph had inherited from his father (fig. 1). As conditions under the Nazi regime grew increasingly dire for Jews in the mid-1930s, Ralph made plans for his family to flee. However, Nazi legislation required Jews who left the German Reich to first pay a punitive flight tax. To raise the vast sum required, Ralph was forced to sell the Bruyn panels and other precious artworks. Ultimately, Ralph, Lili, and their family were able to safely emigrate to South Africa. The Bruyn panels were returned to Ralph’s heirs in 2024.
Bruyn is regarded as one the foremost portrait painters of his generation. In addition to portrait commissions for wealthy patrons in Cologne, he completed important religious commissions, including two pairs of wings for the high altar of the Cathedral in Essen completed in 1525 – the masterpiece of the artist's early religious output – and an altarpiece representing scenes from the life of Saint Victor and Saint Helena for the high altar of the church of Saint Victor in Xantan, datable to between 1529 and 1534.
Executed on an intimate scale that indicates they were intended for private devotion, the present panels would have originally formed the exterior wings of a small triptych. They remained integrated with their corresponding interior wings, depicting Saint Agnes and Saint Cecilia, each respectively accompanied by a female donor, until at least 1876, when they were sold as a separate lot from the collection of Christophe Rhaban Ruhl (loc. cit.). As Horst Joks Tümmers records (loc. cit.), the inner wings were ultimately sold at Kunsthaus Lempertz, 14 November 1962 and included coats of arms on the donors’ prie-dieux that identified them as members of the Grafen von Manderscheid family (left panel) and Grafen von Moers family (right panel). Though the wings are well documented, the triptych's central panel has yet to be identified. The scholar dates all four works to around 1525-1530 (ibid.).
Bruyn is regarded as one the foremost portrait painters of his generation. In addition to portrait commissions for wealthy patrons in Cologne, he completed important religious commissions, including two pairs of wings for the high altar of the Cathedral in Essen completed in 1525 – the masterpiece of the artist's early religious output – and an altarpiece representing scenes from the life of Saint Victor and Saint Helena for the high altar of the church of Saint Victor in Xantan, datable to between 1529 and 1534.
Executed on an intimate scale that indicates they were intended for private devotion, the present panels would have originally formed the exterior wings of a small triptych. They remained integrated with their corresponding interior wings, depicting Saint Agnes and Saint Cecilia, each respectively accompanied by a female donor, until at least 1876, when they were sold as a separate lot from the collection of Christophe Rhaban Ruhl (loc. cit.). As Horst Joks Tümmers records (loc. cit.), the inner wings were ultimately sold at Kunsthaus Lempertz, 14 November 1962 and included coats of arms on the donors’ prie-dieux that identified them as members of the Grafen von Manderscheid family (left panel) and Grafen von Moers family (right panel). Though the wings are well documented, the triptych's central panel has yet to be identified. The scholar dates all four works to around 1525-1530 (ibid.).