Swabian School, circa 1470
NORTHERN SCHOOLS
Swabian School, circa 1470

The Presentation in the Temple

Details
Swabian School, circa 1470
The Presentation in the Temple
pen and brown and grey ink, watermark anchor (cf. Briquet 365-388; North and North East France, mid 15th Century), on a 17th Century Italian mount
9 3/8 x 7¾ in. (233 x 197 mm.)
Provenance
Ascanio della Penna, Perugia, his mount with inscription 'MARTINO SCHOEN Di Calembach dett il pulcro per la leggiadria delle sue opere, fu Contemporaneo e amico del Perugino communicandosi vicendenolmente le finezze dell arte. Inta- glio ottinamente a bullino come si vede nelle sue stampe delle quali imparò Alberto' and 'Morto. nel 1486/118' and 'Cau' ANDREA MANTEGNA' (verso of the mount, with framing lines for two other drawings).
Pierre Crozat, his number '1', Paris, 10 April-13 May 1741, part of lots 782-783 (respectively 6 and 10 livres to Joullain).

Lot Essay

Dr Fritz Koreny kindly suggested that this Presentation in the Temple was drawn in Swabia around 1470, possibly based on a slightly earlier model from the circle of the Master of Sterzing.
This drawing is laid down on the characteristic mount of Ascanio della Penna, a 17th Century collector of drawings from Perugia. The entire collection was bought by Pierre Crozat through the painter Nicolas Vleughels in the late 1710s. Only a very few examples of della Penna's mounts are have been preserved. The largest group is in the Tessin collection bought at the 1741 Crozat sale and now in the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm (P. Bjurström et al., Italian Drawings, 2002, IV, nos. 1158, 1193, 1363, and 1616). According to della Penna's inscriptions the verso of the present mount bore drawings by Mantegna, later detached.
The watermark indicates that the paper was produced in North or East France in the mid 15th Century. Moïse Briquet, who recorded 146 variations of this anchor, noted that the paper was also useed in the neighbouring regions of Switzerland and Swabia.

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