Portrait of a Nobleman

1529

Nicolaus Kremer

Associated Names
Nicolaus Kremer

Artist, German, c. 1500 - 1553

The image depicts a man from the waist up, turned to the side and looking to his right. He has a round face, brown curly hair, and wears a black hat, coat with fur lining, and a white pleated shirt. One hand holds the fur on his coat, while the other rests in front of him. In the background, a green curtain is partially drawn aside, revealing a landscape with a tree, a building, and a faint path or river. The inscription "1529 N.K." is at the top left.

Media Options

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on panel

  • Credit Line

    Ralph and Mary Booth Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 59.7 x 44.1 cm (23 1/2 x 17 3/8 in.)
    framed: 84.4 x 71.1 cm (33 1/4 x 28 in.)

  • Accession Number

    1947.6.3

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Madame de L. de L., Paris; (her sale, Théodore Fischer, Lucerne [with A. Mak, Amsterdam], 27 July 1926, no. 139, as Nicolas Kirberger).[1] Otto B. Schuster, Amsterdam; (sale, Sotheby's, London, 15 July 1931, no. 109, as Master N.K.); Means. Mrs. Jacob H. Schiff; (her sale, American Art Association-Anderson Galleries, New York, 7-9 December 1933, no. 77, as Hans Kirberger [?], bought in [?]).[2] (Dr. Siegfried F. Aram, New York);[3] sold to Mrs. Ralph Harman Booth [Mary Batterman Booth, d. 1951], Grosse Pointe, Michigan, by 1938; gift 1947 to NGA.
[1] It has not been possible to verify the earliest, apparently traditional portion of the provenance which puts the picture first in the possession of a Baron Rechberg, Hohenlöwen, then with a Count von Leutzner. These names may have been derived from the coat-of-arms on the seal on the reverse of the panel, and appear in the Curatorial Records Provenance card file. The arms on the seal are unidentified; Walter Angst, letter to John Hand of 27 May 1989, in curatorial files, states it is not Rechberg or Leutzner, although it could be a collector's seal.
[2] Handwritten annotation, probably by Fern Rusk Shapley, of "no buyer" on the card for this sale in the NGA curatorial records provenance card file.
[3] Siegfried F. Aram (b. 1891), a German lawyer-turned-art collector and dealer, left Nazi Germany in 1934 and established a gallery on 57th Street in New York in 1935.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1939

  • Masterpieces of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture from 1300-1800, New York World's Fair, 1939, no. 207.

Bibliography

1936

  • Kuhn, Charles L. A Catalogue of German Paintings of the Middle Ages and Renaissance in American Collections. Cambridge, Mass., 1936: 94, no. 449.

  • Kremer, Niclaus. A Portrait of A Nobleman by Niclaus Kremer. New York, 1936: unpaginated, repro.

1938

  • Wescher, Paul. "Nicolas Kremer of Strassburg." The Art Quarterly 1 (1938): 204, 208.

1948

  • Recent Additions to the Ralph and Mary Booth Collection. Washington, 1948: unpaginated, repro.

1950

  • "Old Masters in America: Important Gifts to the National Gallery, Washington" The Illustrated London News (September 16, 1950): 449, repro.

1959

  • Hans Baldung Grien. Exh. cat. Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe, 1959: 123. (The NGA portrait was not in the exhibition.)

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 72.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 63, repro.

1973

  • Finley, David Edward. A Standard of Excellence: Andrew W. Mellon Founds the National Gallery of Art at Washington. Washington, 1973: 126.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 155, repro.

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1975: 155, no. 172, color repro. (In rev. ed. Washington 1985, 155, no. 166, color repro.)

1984

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 155, no. 156, color repro.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 217, repro.

  • Butts, Barbara Rosalyn. "'Dürerschüler' Hans Süss von Kulmbach." Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, Cambridge, 1985: 147, 200-204, fig. 146.

1990

  • Grimm, Claus, and Bernd Konrad. Die Fürstenberg Sammlungen Donaueschingen. Altdeutsche und schweizerische Malerei des 15. und 16. Jahrhunderts. Munich, 1990: 200, under no. 51, fig. 51.1.

1993

  • Hand, John Oliver, with the assistance of Sally E. Mansfield. German Paintings of the Fifteenth through Seventeenth Centuries. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, 1993: 115-119, color repro. 117.

1995

  • Löcher, Kurt. Review of German Paintings of the Fifteenth through Seventeenth Centuries, by John Oliver Hand with the assistance of Sally E. Mansfield. Kunstchronik 43 no. 1 (January 1995): 17-18.

Inscriptions

upper left: 1529 / .NK. (in monogram); reverse, a resinous seal bearing a coat-of-arms

Wikidata ID

Q20175943

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