Baldassarre Franceschini, il Volterrano (1611-1689)

RUDOLF AND MARGOT WITTKOWER By Victoria Newhouse Margot Wittkower shared with her illustrious husband, Rudy, a passion for art and architecture and an infallible eye for both. From an early age, the Wittkowers applied their wide-ranging knowledge of history to the acquisition of art. The Wittkowers' life provided ideal circumstances in which to pursue their passion for collecting. Generally considered as one of the founding fathers of Renaissance and Baroque visual history, Rudolf Wittkower (1901-1971) and his bride, Margot (1902-1995) moved in 1923 from their native Berlin to Rome, where he was associated for five years with the Hertziana, a meeting place for many of the most important scholars of that time. Ernst Steinmann, Gertrude Bing, Richard Krautheimer and Charles De Tolnay were among those who welcomed the brilliant and charming young couple into their midst and who helped them to refine their critical eye. When Mrs. Wittkower arrived in Rome she was, in fact, equipped for a career of her own. Independent and self-confident, she was one of the first women to study interior design in Germany (1919-1922), where she had already worked for Adolf Sommerfield, a property developer best-known for the timber house he commissioned from Walter Gropius (1921). But in Rome job opportunities were rare for women, and Mrs. Wittkower began what became her lifelong pursuit of research for her husband's numerous publications. In 1927 the Wittkowers returned to Berlin where Mrs. Wittkower's own career blossomed through contacts provided in part by her family--her father was a doctor. She obtained commissions for stores, professional offices, residences and custom-made furniture. In 1933, the Wittkowers left Berlin for London, where Mrs. Wittkower continued her design work with several established architects. Here, as in Rome, the Wittkowers found themselves at the heart of an important intellectual community. In addition to British scholars such as Anthony Blunt, Kenneth Clark and Ellis Waterhouse the community included many Jewish intellectuals, such as Fritz Saxl, Nicholas Pevsner, Edgar Wind and Ernst Gombrich who like the Wittkowers, had fled Nazi Germany. Eventually Professor Wittkower became one of the most active members of the Warburg Institute. By now a well established authority in his field, Rudolf Wittkower had the means to collect in earnest. Both in the capital, including its most remote suburbs, and in the many provincial towns and cities they frequently visited, the Wittkowers combed antique stores for the Italian Baroque and Renaissance art they loved so much. In 1956 Rudolf Wittkower accepted Columbia University's invitation to head its Department of Art History and Archaeology. He served as the much loved head of the department until 1969. In New York, Professor Wittkower shared his expertise with several collectors who had similar interests in collecting art from the Renaissance and Baroque periods. Until his death in 1971, Rudolf Wittkower remained a vital presence in his field. He was the Kress Professor in residence at the National Gallery in Washington and the Slade Professor at Cambridge. He continued to lecture, to write and to advise Columbia University's art history department, and various students, museums and collectors. He published innumerable articles, six pamphlets and twenty-one books he published. Several of his books have become standard texts, essential to any investigation of Baroque art and architecture. Perhaps the most famous among them is Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism (1949): treated by its first English publishers as a highly speculative, specialized study, it has been re-edited numerous times in English and translated into at least six languages. Mrs. Wittkower co-authored two books with her husband: Born Under Saturn (1963), a compelling inquiry into the nature of artistic creativity and The Divine Michelangelo (1964). At the time of her death in July of last year at the age of 93, Mrs. Wittkower was working on a book of her own, a monograph on Lord Burlington, the outstanding figure of the Neo-Palladian movement. PROPERTY FROM THE ESTATE OF RUDOLF AND MARGOT WITTKOWER

Details

Baldassarre Franceschini, il Volterrano (1611-1689)

Study of a Catafalque

inscribed 'PRYNCEPS MATI', red chalk, pen and brown ink
11½ x 8¼in. (292 x 210mm.)

Provenance

Kurt Cassirer, from a collection of Volterrano drawings formerly in Florence.

Exhibited

London, The Courtauld Institute, Architectural and Decorative Drawings, 1941, no. 12.

Lot Essay

Similar in handling to a design for decorative metalwork sold at Sotheby's, London, 3 July 1980, lot 4, illustrated.
The inscription suggests that the catafalque was intended for the funeral of Prince Mathias de'Medici, son of Cosimo II, who died in 1667.