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Nicolaus Kremer

Portrait of a Nobleman, 1529

West Building, Main Floor — Gallery 35

Medium

oil on panel

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.)

Credit Line

Ralph and Mary Booth Collection

Accession Number

1947.6.3

Artists / Makers

Nicolaus Kremer (artist) German, c. 1500 - 1553

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
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Inscription

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

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

American Art Association
Aram, Siegfried F., Dr.
Booth, Ralph Harman, Mrs.
Fischer, Théodore
Means
Schiff, Jacob H., Mrs.
Schuster, Otto B.
Sotheby's, London
de L. de L., Madame

Exhibition History

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

Technical Summary

The panel is composed of three boards with vertically oriented grain. The dendrochronological examination by Peter Klein yielded information only from the center board and provided a felling date of 1493 +6/-4. Examination with infrared reflectography revealed underdrawing, probably applied with a brush in a liquid medium, in the curtain folds and the landscape and in the hands. Several changes are visible in the x-radiograph; the sitter's right hand was originally slightly more to the left, and the left hand was placed parallel to it as if both were holding an object, such as a piece of paper. The right side of the face along the cheek and chin has been enlarged very slightly. Examination of the date and monogram did not disclose adulteration or inpainting. There are several checks in the wooden support running from the top edge along the vertical grain, and the panel has been attacked by worms in several locations, notably the left and right edges. There is retouching throughout, but the greatest concentration of loss and subsequent retouching occurs in the sitter's face and along the checks. An edge of white ground has been left around the sides, presumably to accommodate the frame, but the two vertical edges and the top left and right corners have been reworked using a material denser than the original ground.

Bibliography

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

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

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.

1975: 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: Butts, Barbara Rosalyn. "'Dürerschüler' Hans Süss von Kulmbach." Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, Cambridge, 1985: 147, 200-204, fig. 146.

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

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.