Provenance

Trivulzio collection, Milan, before 1922;[1] (Count Alessandro Contini Bonacossi, Rome and Florence); purchased 26 June 1935 by Samuel H. Kress, New York;[2] gift 27 February 1950 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[3] gift 1961 to NGA.
[1] The bill of sale from Contini Bonacossi (see note 2) is annotated "From the Trivulzio Collection, Milan." Marc Rosenberg, Der Goldschmiede Merkzeichen, 3d ed., 4 vols., Frankfurt, 1922-1928: 3:50, mentions an Ulrich coffer in the Trivulzio collection. Rosenberg's second edition (Frankfurt, 1911), 43, no. 260, in which he had interpreted Ulrich's mark as that of Bernhard Vesenmaier, does not mention the Trivulzio coffer.
[2] The bill of sale was for seven paintings and a number of decorative arts objects (copy in NGA curatorial files). The coffer is described as "A German Renaissance Coffer in Ebony, Gold and Silver. By Boas Ulrich of Augsburg." A.M. Hind wrote that he first heard of the Trivulzio nielli, with which this coffer was acquired, as being in Kress' hands in 1937 (letter of 12 June 1951 to (then) NGA chief curator John Walker, copy in NGA curatorial files).
[3] Deposition by Herbert L. Spencer, executive director, Samuel H. Kress Foundation, 21 August 1956; in NGA secretary-general counsel's office files.

Associated Names

Bibliography

1922

Wikidata ID

Q62286645