Holbein. Cranach. Grünewald Masterpieces from the Kunstmuseum

Holbein. Cranach. Grünewald
Masterpieces from the Kunstmuseum Basel
11 April 2015 — 28 February 2016
Museum der Kulturen Basel
Works of northern Renaissance art form the core of the Old Master
collection at the Öffentliche Kunstsammlung Basel: they belong
among its earliest and its most important holdings. They include,
for example, the group of paintings that Hans Holbein the Younger
created in Basel, which is without parallel anywhere in the world.
From the outset, planning for the period during which the Kunst­
museum would close for construction work therefore entailed
a wish to keep at least some of these precious works continuously
accessible to the public.
In more than one respect it was a stroke of luck that the
Museum der Kulturen Basel helped us to fulfil this wish by placing
space at our disposal. We extend our thanks to all the colleagues
involved, especially Anna Schmid, the museum’s director. First and
foremost, conservation requirements are met fully in the Museum
der Kulturen’s recently restored and expanded premises on Münster­
platz. The fact that two works by Hans Holbein the Younger are
now in immediate proximity to their original location is an attractive
bonus: Basel Minster, for the organ of which Holbein painted two
monumental shutters 16–17 and in the cloisters of which he pro­duced
two highly original altarpiece shutters for the tomb of Maria Zscheckenbürlin 21, is only a few steps away from the Museum der Kulturen.
The altarpiece shutters, depicting scenes from Christ’s Passion,
formed part of the liturgical apparatus promoting the salvation of the
soul of this city councillor’s widow. Specialists call the relevant pas­
sages in the pious woman’s will ‘donations for the soul’. They contain
precise instructions as to the contents of the altarpiece, probably in
case the donor did not live to witness its completion; but the chief
purpose of the document was to provide an endowment for a priest
to say Mass at the altar.
Zscheckenbürlin’s will thus manifests one basic similarity
between works by Holbein, Cranach, Grünewald and their contempo­
raries on the one hand and the objects housed, displayed and ex­
plained in the Museum der Kulturen on the other: in both instances
the exhibits, however beautiful they may be, are not examples of
‘art for art’s sake’, but artefacts that once possessed a specific place
and a specific function in the religion and society of their creators.
They therefore tell us something about the cultures in which they
Cat.
cat.
originated. The wide range of the narratives they prompt reflects the
huge variety of the cultures involved. Old Master paintings from the
Kunstmuseum are now adding their voice to the chorus of cultures in
the Museum der Kulturen. Their new surroundings will undoubtedly
enrich our understanding of the paintings.
Yet that is only half the truth. Anyone taking a close look at the
complex iconographical programme of Witz’s Heilsspiegel altarpiece
1– 8, for instance, or at the subtlety of Holbein’s painting and his
allusions to architectural history in the altarpiece shutters with scenes
from Christ’s Passion 21, will realise that it would be a gross over­
simplification to view an altarpiece simply as a liturgical implement
(and one not even essential to the celebration of Mass, unlike the
altar itself). For these and the other exhibits date from one of the most
fascinating periods in European history. Among the many radical
changes it saw was a new attitude to material culture: more clearly
than ever before, artists and their patrons appreciated the character
of the objects they created or commissioned as ‘art’. Much has been
written recently about this crucial reorientation, encapsulated in
a catchphrase like ‘from cult image to the cult of images’. The fact
that the works by Witz and Holbein mentioned above survived the
iconoclastic fury that raged in Basel in 1529 in itself testifies to this
development: obviously, considerable artistic and material value was
attached to them independently of their religious function, which had
suddenly become obsolete or undesirable. The present publication
offers a few suggestions for getting to grips with the artistic strategies
embodied in the works. In a sense, the reader may therefore be said
to follow in the footsteps of the artists, who got to grips with nature
by ‘wresting’ art from it, as Albrecht Dürer aptly put it.
In bringing together witnesses to this important transformation in
attitudes, the exhibition “Holbein. Cranach. Grünewald” ties in with
issues addressed by our host institution. Its display “StrohGold /
StrawGold” is devoted to objects that acquire new attributes and
attributions when incorporated into a new context. That is precisely
what is happening to the Old Master paintings that can now be
admired for almost a year in the Museum der Kulturen.
cat.
cat.
Bernhard Mendes Bürgi
Bodo Brinkmann
CAT. 1
CAT. 2
CAT. 3
Konrad Witz
Ecclesia, c. 1435
Konrad Witz
The angel of the Annunciation
c. 1435
Konrad Witz
Synagogue, c. 1435
cat. 1– 4
cat. 10
CAT. 4
Konrad Witz
St Bartholomew, c. 1435
CAT. 5
CAT. 6
Konrad Witz
Abraham and Melchizedek, c. 1435
Konrad Witz
Antipater before Julius Caesar
c. 1435
Konrad Witz
Bodies in light and space
‘Where there is light, there must be shadow.’ For most of the Middle
Ages this insight into the natural world was unknown to painters, who
worked instead with a mysterious kind of light that seemed to ema­
nate from within the objects in their pictures. This did not change
significantly until an intensely realistic style of painting emerged dur­
ing the first half of the fifteenth century. Basel stood in the forefront of
this development because during the church Council held in the city
from 1431 to 1449 it was home to one of the earliest exponents of the
new painting: Konrad Witz (c. 1400 – c. 1446) from Rottweil in Swabia,
Germany.
Witz’s stocky figures have a light side and a dark side; they cast
bold shadows on the ground at their feet and the walls behind them;
and their garments have deep furrows modelled boldly by the light
striking them. The area around the figures is defined by architectural
elements whose vanishing lines indicate spatial recession without
converging on a single point in the centre in the manner being per­
fected in Italy at this time. A skilful use of light enhances the sense of
space. In places the painter even suggests an interaction between pic­
torial space and real space. In some pictures, for example, he attracts
the viewer’s attention by depicting small areas of damage to the out­
side of the stone framings of his interiors or by showing traces of the
stone’s working cat. 1– 4. Or again, the wooden barrier in The meeting of
Joachim and Anne at the Golden Gate seems to swing out into the
viewer’s space, while, conversely, the picture frame appears to cast a
shadow on the image at the upper right cat. 10. At the same time, objects
seen close to, such as the barrier and the wall behind it, with its crum­
bling plaster, reveal Witz’s interest in details of construction and his
skill at depicting the physical characteristics of materials. These
range in his paintings from wood, stone, mortar and other building
materials to textiles (including light linen and heavy velvet or gold
brocade) and from brightly polished metal and transparent glass to
shining precious and semi-precious stones.
All but two of the panels shown here come from Witz’s principal
work, the Heilsspiegel (Mirror of Salvation) altarpiece, painted in Ba­
sel around 1435, probably for St Leonhard’s church. The iconographi­
cal programme of the altarpiece is unusual in that it is typological; in
other words, it focuses on theological parallels between the Old and
the New Testament. For example, the scene in which the king and high
priest Melchizedek blesses the Jewish patriarch Abraham with bread
and wine (Gen. 14:18) was viewed as a prefiguration of Christ’s Last
Supper in the New Testament cat. 5. Or again, the story of how David
offered water to God that had been brought to him to drink by the
three warriors Abishai, Sibbecai and Benaiah, who had risked their
lives to fetch it from the enemy-occupied city of Bethlehem (2 Samuel
23:15–17), was considered to anticipate the Three Magi offering their
gifts to the Christ child cat. 7– 8. The Old Testament scenes in Witz’s al­
tarpiece, all featuring gold grounds, appeared on the inner faces of
the two shutters. They must have flanked the corresponding subjects
from the New Testament in the central section, which has not sur­
vived. The outer faces, visible with the shutters closed in front of the
cat. 5
cat. 7– 8
CAT. 7
CAT. 8
CAT. 9
Konrad Witz
Abishai before David, c. 1435
Konrad Witz
Sibbecai and Benaiah, c. 1435
Konrad Witz
St Christopher, c. 1435–45
cat. 1– 4
cat. 10
cat. 9
centre, showed single figures in bare interiors with grey walls. Patron
saints of St Leonhard’s church occupied the bottom row cat. 4, while the
top announced in abbreviated form the typological programme of the
images displayed when the shutters were opened: personifications of
the Old and New Covenant – the Jewish Synagogue and the Christian
Church (Ecclesia) – appeared on either side of the Annunciation to the
Virgin Mary, an image embodying the transition from one to the other
effected by Christ’s incarnation cat. 1– 3.
The large panel in the centre of the current display originally
formed a shutter of a triptych on the high altar in the church of the
Cistercian monastery at Olsberg in the Swiss canton of Aargau cat. 10. It
shows the meeting of the Virgin Mary’s parents, Joachim and Anne, at
the Golden Gate in Jerusalem, a subject that symbolises the miracu­
lous birth of Mary to an aged couple. The central panel of the altar­
piece, of which only a fragment survives, thus probably bore an image
of the Holy Kindred, the family of Christ as described by legend.
The painting of St Christopher seems to have been an independ­
ent work cat. 9. Christopher was the patron saint of travellers and alleg­
edly preserved the faithful from an untimely death. Very popular in
the late Middle Ages, he was often depicted on his own.
CAT. 10
Konrad Witz
The meeting of Joachim and Anne at
the Golden Gate, c. 1437–40
CAT. 12
CAT. 11
Hans Holbein the Younger
Double portrait of Jacob Meyer zum Hasen and his wife,
Dorothea, née Kannengiesser, 1516
Hans Holbein the Younger
Portrait of Bonifacius Amerbach
1519
CAT. 13
CAT. 14
Ambrosius Holbein
School sign (teacher and children)
1516
Hans Holbein the Younger
School sign (teacher and adults)
1516
CAT. 15
Hans Holbein the Younger
Portrait of the Holbein family: The
artist’s wife and the two eldest
children, c. 1528–29
Hans Holbein the Younger
The human condition under scrutiny
cat. 11
cat. 12
Hans Holbein the Younger settled in Basel with his elder brother Am­
brosius in 1515, when he was seventeen or eighteen. Ambrosius died a
few years later, but Hans stayed on in the city for one-and-a-half very
productive decades. When the Reformation became established in Ba­
sel, its iconoclasm made him fear for his livelihood and he moved to
London, where he became a successful portrait painter at the court of
Henry VIII.
Holbein had already proved his skill as a portraitist at the out­
set of his career, in a diptych depicting Jacob Meyer zum Hasen, mayor
of Basel, and his wife, Dorothea, née Kannengiesser cat. 11. The revolu­
tionary composition of this double portrait shows the bust-length fig­
ures angled towards each other beneath a triumphal arch inspired by
the architecture of classical antiquity. This arrangement enabled the
artist not only to create a compelling sense of depth, but also to dif­
ferentiate clearly between the sitters in psychological terms. Placed
slightly farther back, Dorothea does not gaze at the viewer, but looks
instead at the left side of her husband’s face from the same angle as
that from which the viewer sees the right side. She observes her liter­
ally ‘far-sighted’ husband (he is gazing into an imaginary distance)
with more admiration and respect than warmth. The newly elected
mayor, a true parvenu, doubtless expected the same of viewers of this
official portrait.
The young Bonifacius Amerbach is a rather more likeable char­
acter than Meyer, if not entirely free of vanity cat. 12. Holbein depicts
him against a distant view of snowy mountain slopes, hinting at far-
off places. Amerbach was indeed about to travel abroad – to Avignon,
in order to continue the legal studies he had begun in Freiburg. He
was responsible for the words in praise of the artist that appear on the
tablet and no doubt required the inscription to end with a date featur­
ing his birthday. Clearly, nothing was left to chance. That also applies
to the portrait of Amerbach’s close friend Erasmus, which shows the
great scholar in strict profile and absorbed in his work cat. 34. Later, on
a medallion-shaped panel, Holbein painted Erasmus again, much
aged and with only a few years to live cat. 35.
Holbein’s portraiture is understandably at its most searching
when it could be said to be putting his own case. In 1528–29, on re­
turning from his first stay in England, he depicted his wife, Elsbeth,
née Binzenstock, and their two eldest children, Philipp and Katharina,
with a realism so stark as to eliminate all traces of idealisation cat. 15.
Dressed in everyday clothes, Elsbeth Holbein appears as an introvert­
ed woman whose features bespeak a life of hard work and the onset of
old age. The impression of immense dignity conveyed by this image
derives from its basis in the kind of strictly pyramidal composition
typical of certain religious subjects, such as The Virgin and Child with
the Young St John the Baptist and The Virgin and Child with St Anne.
However, the picture was originally much wider. The right half, now
lost, probably showed the father of the family painting the portrait.
The children would then have been turned towards him, and the com­
position as a whole might have evoked another standard religious
image: St Luke painting the Virgin and Child.
cat. 34
cat. 35
cat. 15
CAT. 16–17
Hans Holbein the Younger
Empress Kunigunde, Basel Minster and Emperor Henry II;
The Virgin and Child, music-making angels and
St Pantalus. Shutters of Basel Minster organ, c. 1525–26
or 1528
CAT. 20
Hans Holbein THE YOUNGER
The dead Christ in the tomb, 1521–22
CAT. 18
CAT. 19
Hans Holbein the Younger
Lais Corinthiaca, 1526
Hans Holbein the Younger
The Man of Sorrows and The mourning Virgin, c. 1518–20
cat. 20
cat. 12
If Holbein gave his extremely naturalistic family portrait a sacred
aura by borrowing from religious imagery, in The dead Christ in the
tomb he did the opposite, granting the biblical subject a telling and
timeless presence by means of a merciless verism cat. 20. The painting
concentrates on just three motifs: the burial chamber; the shroud,
slightly rumpled when the body was lowered into the chamber; and
the body itself, which displays all the characteristic features of a
human corpse. In combination with a perspective suggesting closeness
to the viewer and with a figure shown at life-size, this intense focus
calls on the beholder to witness in person an imaginary moment be­
tween two stages in the biblical narrative: the deposition in the tomb,
performed by people who have now withdrawn, and the closing and
sealing of the grave. Bridging the historical gap between the biblical
events and the viewer in this way, Holbein creates a paradoxical situ­
ation that he addresses in the work itself by including his signature
and the date of the painting, which are inscribed – seemingly in stone
– in upper-case Roman letters and numerals at the right-hand end of
the tomb. An image reduced to essentials thus embodies some rather
complex ideas. Holbein probably worked these out with Bonifacius
Amerbach cat. 12, who would appear to have commissioned this extraor­
dinary painting for a family grave planned for the cloisters of the
Carthusian monastery in Basel but not installed there owing to the
city’s adoption of the Reformation.
It has been claimed that Holbein based the figure of the dead Christ on
studies he made of the corpse of a man who had drowned in the Rhine.
The truth of this assertion cannot be ascertained, but the two school­
room scenes, which originally formed the front and back of a shop
sign, do prove that he and his brother Ambrosius observed their fellow
human beings closely when they were still alive cat. 13–14. With empathy
and wit, the two paintings point up the difference between a class
with remarkably well-behaved elementary school pupils and one with
notably less attentive young men. It has been suggested that these
delightful panels were intended for the Basel schoolteacher Oswald
Geisshüsler (also known as Myconius), who was well-known to the
Holbein brothers. If they were taught by Geisshüsler, as has been con­
jectured, the scene with the adult pupils may have been an ironic com­
mentary on their own behaviour and the symbolic shop sign a farewell
present for their teacher, who left Basel in the year it was painted.
What is certain is that with this occasional work Hans and Ambrosius
Holbein, almost incidentally, invented a new artistic category: genre
painting.
cat. 13–14
CAT. 22
CAT. 23
CAT. 24
Hans Holbein the Elder
The death of the Virgin, 1501
Hans Holbein the Elder
Portrait of the wife of Jörg Fischer
aged 34, 1512
Hans Holbein the Elder
Portrait of Philipp Adler, 1513
Hans Holbein the Elder
The great model of a great son
CAT. 21
Hans Holbein the Younger
The Passion: Christ on the Mount of Olives, The arrest
of Christ, Christ before Caiaphas, The flagellation;
The crowning with thorns, The carrying of the cross,
The crucifixion, The entombment. Outer faces of two
altarpiece shutters, c. 1524–26
By the time Hans Holbein the Younger and his brother Ambrosius ap­
peared in Basel in 1515 they had probably received a thorough train­
ing in their father’s workshop; for, although the brothers entered the
workshop of a local painter, Hans was awarded a highly prestigious
commission of his own only one year later cat. 11. This early double
portrait of the mayor of Basel and his wife reveals how closely he took
his cue from his father’s work. A few years previously, for example,
Hans the Elder had used antique-inspired architecture to lend dignity
to his portrait of Philipp Adler cat. 22, while his 1512 portrait of a woman
anticipated his son’s painting of the mayor’s wife right down to the
position of her body and arms cat. 24. Some 150 portrait drawings by the
elder Holbein have survived and they testify vividly to his intense and
unceasing interest in the appearance of his contemporaries. This en­
gagement with human individuality stood him in good stead when it
came both to painting portraits and to depicting a wide variety of
everyday figures, such as the apostles in his painting of the death of
the Virgin from an altarpiece for the Dominican church in Frankfurt
am Main cat. 23.
cat. 11
cat. 22 – 24
CAT. 25
CAT. 26
Viennese Master
The Man of Sorrows and The Virgin and Child, c. 1400–10
Hans Pleydenwurff
(workshop)
The Man of Sorrows, c. 1456
Matthias Grünewald
All the world’s a stage
cat. 27
It is surely no accident that the art of Hans Holbein the Younger has
provided inspiration for Hiroshi Sugimoto and other present-day pho­
tographers. Any attempt to link the painting of Matthias Grünewald
with modern activities in a different field almost inevitably leads to
comparisons with the world of the theatre. Grünewald’s pictures are
the work of an exceptionally gifted director, choreographer and prop
man. The mise en scène in his Basel Crucifixion, a rather small devo­
tional image, grabs the spectator’s attention through its lighting cat. 27.
In the Bible Christ’s death on the cross is said to have been accompa­
nied by a great darkness and an earthquake. This is rarely shown
in art, but it prompted Grünewald to create a spectacular nocturnal
image that is lit by the radiance emanating from the Saviour’s body.
Boldly reviving the earlier medieval practice of indicating the relative
importance of a figure by its size, he depicts a more than life-size
Christ who towers over all the subsidiary figures. The largest of these
is the Roman centurion who oversaw the crucifixion and, according to
the gospel of St Matthew, commented on the wondrous events with the
words ‘Truly this was the Son of God’ (Matt. 27:54). Grünewald puts
these words almost literally into the centurion’s mouth, inscribing
them next to him in gold letters in Latin. In most Crucifixions of this
period the centurion points at Christ with his finger, but here he gives
him the military salute customary in ancient Rome, raising his right
arm with the palm of the hand facing outwards. Grünewald, who
came from Lower Franconia in Germany, may have seen this gesture
in provincial Roman monuments. And although his archaeological
CAT. 27
Matthias Grünewald
The crucifixion of Christ, c. 1515
CAT. 28
CAT. 29
CAT. 30 – 31
Bavarian Master
Portrait of an old man (‘Pius
Joachim’), c. 1475
Basel Master
Locket portrait of Hieronymus Froben, with lid, 1557–58
Lucas Cranach the Elder
Locket portraits of Martin Luther and his wife, Katharina,
née von Bora, 1525
CAT. 32
Lucas Cranach the Elder
The judgement of Paris, 1528
Lucas Cranach the Elder
Devotions and titillations
ambitions did not extend to the correct representation of ancient
Roman armour, contemporaries will certainly have registered the
suit of armour worn by the centurion as old-fashioned, because by
Grünewald’s time breast armour had become rounded rather than
box-shaped. The artist did indeed copy the armour from an engrav­
ing produced roughly seventy years earlier.
Grünewald’s Basel Crucifixion thus amounts to a pictorial stag­
ing of the conversion of the most important heathen present at the foot
of the cross, who is seen to acknowledge Christ as his lord publicly and
in military fashion. This triumph of faith, shown on the exclusively
male right, and anguish at the death on the cross, expressed in the
pathos-laden group of mourning women on the left, go hand in hand
with one another. Viewers were intended to reflect on this fact while
contemplating the painting during their private devotions. This devo­
tional image therefore exhibits a dichotomy comparable to that fea­
tured on a monumental scale in the Crucifixion on the outer face of
Grünewald’s Isenheim altarpiece in Colmar. There, too, the left side is
reserved for a heart-rending display of sorrow at Christ’s death on the
cross, whereas on the right it is St John the Baptist who bears witness
to the Messiah’s divine nature. In order to make a theological point,
Grünewald here disregards the biblical narrative, according to which
St John had long since ceased to be alive when Christ was crucified.
Lucas Cranach, whose surname derives from his birthplace, Kronach,
in Upper Franconia, Germany, enjoyed one of the most extraordinary
careers in all early sixteenth-century art. By the end of his life, this
son of an otherwise unknown painter was head of a family enterprise
that grew out of a large painter’s workshop organised along factory
lines and at various times encompassed an apothecary, a wine mer­
chandising business, a printing and publishing works and a property
management firm. He was evidently able to combine this wide-ranging
business activity with the post of court painter, which he held under
three successive Electors of Saxony. In addition, he was elected treas­
urer and mayor of Wittenberg on more than one occasion.
Elector Frederick the Wise, who called Cranach to his court in
1505, sent him to the Netherlands for a brief period in 1508. The
charming portrait of a female donor from an altarpiece shutter is
dressed in the Netherlandish fashion and probably dates from this
trip cat. 33. She is praying to the image or images in the lost central sec­
tion of the altarpiece, towards which her husband (shown in a panel
now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) turns from the
opposite side, a rosary in his hands. Saints in niches appear in the
grisaille paintings on the outer faces of the two shutters. The icono­
graphical programme of the altarpiece thus belongs entirely to Cath­
olic tradition, which Cranach continued to cultivate for patrons of that
denomination even after the Reformation had become well-estab­
lished in Wittenberg. Apparently, promoters and adherents of the Ref­
ormation did not object to this – least of all Martin Luther, with whom
cat. 33
CAT. 33
CAT. 34
CAT. 35
Lucas Cranach the Elder
Bust-length portrait of a donor and St Catherine.
Inner and outer faces of an altarpiece shutter, c. 1508
Hans Holbein the Younger
Portrait of Erasmus writing, 1523
Hans Holbein the Younger
Tondo portrait of Erasmus, c. 1532
CAT. 36
CAT. 37
Hans Baldung Grien
Death and the maiden, 1517
Hans Baldung Grien
Death and the woman, c. 1520–25
Hans Baldung Grien
Convention overturned
cat. 30
cat. 32
cat. 28
cat. 30–31
the painter was close friends cat. 30. Cranach also produced, seemingly
as a matter of course, paintings and woodcuts on the new, Protestant
subjects, including items of anti-papal propaganda.
Yet it was non-religious subject matter that constituted his sec­
ond mainstay as an artist. His stylised, doll-like female nudes, por­
trayed with melting softness, were immensely popular. For instance,
his surviving paintings include more than a dozen versions of The
judgement of Paris, a subject from classical mythology that entailed
the depiction of no less than three naked goddesses cat. 32. Members of
the court and university in Wittenberg were apparently the first to
show an interest in humanist subjects, but this was soon taken up in
other sections of society. The fine Basel panel, for example, bears the
coat of arms of the Rottengatters, a wealthy and influential family of
guild-based merchants from Ulm that did not belong to the upper ech­
elons of the burgher class.
In Cranach’s day kings and princes had long since ceased to be
the only people deemed worthy of a portrait. High-ranking burghers
had already had their portraits painted in the fifteenth century cat. 28,
and later there clearly existed a demand among a broader section of
the population for portraits of Luther and other outstanding person­
alities. Cranach depicted the Protestant reformer many times, often
together with his wife. Very occasionally, he did so in the precious
form of ‘locket portraits’, which, like those included here, could be
closed like boxes cat. 30–31.
Baldung was the only artist of his time to come from a family of scholars
rather than craftsmen. In a sense, then, his choice of occupation ill
befitted his rank. Perhaps this outsider status prompted the critical
approach to tradition that informs many of his works.
Among the sources Baldung drew on for his early painting of
the Virgin and Child with St Anne were Albrecht Dürer’s Life of the
Virgin woodcuts, which provided models for the unusually complex
architectural setting cat. 38. The composition accords special prominence
to the apple held by the Christ child: placed directly beneath the dove
in the centre of the main group of figures, it acts as a pictorial leitmotif,
pointing backwards to humanity’s fall from grace through consump­
tion of the forbidden fruit in Paradise and forwards to Christ’s con­
quest of sin. At the top of the painting Baldung engages in a kind of
free improvisation on the theme of apples, showing a large number of
them laid out to dry on the roof joists and a few winged putti making
straight for the gold ones on the festoons. Obviously created by human
hand, the latter are unsuitable for consumption. Apples thus appear
here in several guises, as symbols, as delicacies and as decoration.
This variety indicates that the artist played a decisive role in the inter­
pretation as well as the representation of the fruit, even depriving it of
its traditional theological significance if he so wishes.
In addition to amplifying religious themes to include such allu­
sions, Baldung took an active part in inventing new secular imagery.
The two panels showing Death attacking a younger and an older woman
respectively belong in this context cat. 36–37. In the earlier version, dat­
cat. 38
cat. 36–37
CAT. 38
CAT. 39
Hans Baldung Grien
The Virgin and Child with St Anne
c. 1510–15
Niklaus Manuel Deutsch
Pyramus and Thisbe, c. 1513–14
CAT. 40
CAT. 41
Niklaus Manuel Deutsch
Lucretia, 1517
Niklaus Manuel Deutsch
Niklaus Manuel Deutsch, Bathseba at her Bath and Death
embracing a young woman. Obverse and reverse of a panel
1517
Niklaus Manuel Deutsch
Untruth to materials
ing from 1517, Death is pulling a beauty by her hair towards an open
grave – an image that recalls the origins of the subject in depictions of
the danse macabre, which encompassed the whole of society. The
slightly later version depicts a psychologically more complex situation
and involves the viewer: Death attempts to seduce the woman with a
kiss, while she presents her alabaster-like body to the beholder and
thus herself acts as a seducer. This expands the relationship between
Death and the woman into a kind of ménage à trois. Apparently catch­
ing the skeleton red-handed, as it were, the viewer is exposed to the
erotic charms of the female nude and thus automatically confronts
Death. This naturally increases the horror of the scene, as the be­
holder comes to experience the link between sex and death virtually
at first hand. By activating the viewer’s role in this way, Baldung add­
ed to the already astonishing modernity of his art.
Niklaus Manuel Deutsch from Bern addressed the theme of love and
death at the same time as Baldung, but in an even more extreme way
cat. 41. Tattered remains of the uniform worn by Swiss mercenaries
hang from the legs of Niklaus Manuel’s almost fleshless figure of Death
as he puts his hand up the woman’s dress. This Death is a mercenary,
then, who has chosen a baggage train prostitute as his victim. The
unusually explicit image was not readily visible, because it appears on
the reverse of a panel bearing a depiction of David and Bathseba – an­
other intensely erotic subject, but hallowed by its presence in the Old
Testament. To see the reverse, it is necessary to pick up the small
painting, turn it round and study it as one would a drawing. The mono­
chrome painting does in fact imitate chiaroscuro drawing on brown
prepared paper, a much-favoured technique at the time. Niklaus
Manuel clearly enjoyed deceiving the eye with regard to the materials
in his works. Not only is his half-length depiction of Lucretia seem­
ingly surrounded by a stone frame carved in relief; the emphatically
dark background makes it appear that the figure, too, has been cut
from stone, in the manner of pietra dura cat. 40. In actual fact, of course,
it is painted on panel. By contrast, the large image of Pyramus and
Thisbe is a Tüchlein (cloth painting), executed in unvarnished colours
on very fine canvas cat. 39. This technique, popular in the early six­
teenth century, may have been chosen because its effect comes close
to that of a tapestry, which would have been far more expensive to
produce.
cat. 41
cat. 40
cat. 39
CAT. 42
Netherlandish Master
Portrait of the Anabaptist David
Joris, c. 1550–55
Tobias Stimmer
The burgher as hero
cat. 43–44
cat. 42
The full-length life-size portraits of himself and his wife that the Zurich
granary administrator and ensign Jacob Schwytzer commissioned
from Tobias Stimmer of Schaffhausen exude an aura of self-confidence
and pride in Swiss independence cat. 43–44. Outside Switzer­land it would
have been virtually inconceivable for a member of the burgher class
to avail himself of a portrait type reserved for royalty and the upper
aristocracy. And, like them, Schwytzer lays claim to the kind of status
it embodies not as a private person, but, in his case, as a municipal
officeholder: armed with a Swiss dagger and a sword, he presents
himself as a resolute defender of his city.
Just how seriously portraits were taken as substitutes for the
person depicted is indicated by the case of David Joris cat. 42. Arriving
in Basel from the Netherlands, Joris passed himself off as a nobleman
by the name of Johann von Bruck and lived in the city as a prosperous
and respected figure until his death, in 1557. Two years later his true
identity emerged: he had been a leading Anabaptist and had long been
sought after by the church as an arch-heretic. After his posthumous
conviction for heresy, the Council of Basel had his body exhumed and
burned at the stake, along with his writings and a portrait of him. The
present portrait by an unidentified Netherlandish painter was confis­
cated, a lengthy description of events inscribed on its reverse in Ger­
man and Latin, and the panel deposited in the municipal storehouse.
From there it eventually entered the city’s public art collection, the
Öffentliche Kunstsammlung.
CAT. 43–44
Tobias Stimmer
Tobias Stimmer, Portraits of Jacob
Schwytzer and his wife, Elsbeth, née
Lochmann, 1564
Works exhibited
Hans Baldung Grien
(1484/85–1545)
cat. 36
Death and the maiden
1517
Mixed media on limewood
30.3 x 14.7 cm
Kunstmuseum Basel,
Museum Faesch
1823, inv. 18
cat. 37
Death and the woman
c. 1520 – 25
Mixed media on limewood
29.8 x 17.1 cm
Kunstmuseum Basel,
Museum Faesch
1823, inv. 19
cat. 38
The Virgin and Child with
St Anne, c. 1510–15
Mixed media on limewood
71.1 x 49.3 cm
Kunstmuseum Basel,
on loan from the Gottfried
Keller-Stiftung
1909, inv. 856
Lucas Cranach
THE ELDER
(1472–1553)
Hans Holbein
the Elder
(c. 1460/65–1524)
30–31
Locket portraits of Martin
Luther and his wife,
Katharina, née von Bora
1525
Mixed media on beech
diam. 10 cm (each)
Kunstmuseum Basel,
Gift of Prof. Johann Rudolf
Thurneysen-Faesch
1762, inv. 177 and 177a
22
Portrait of Philipp Adler
1513
Oil on limewood (?)
41.3 x 29.5 cm
Kunstmuseum Basel,
purchased with a special
loan from the Great
Council of the canton of
Basel-City and with
private contributions
1981, inv. G 1981.1
cat.
cat. 32
The judgement of Paris
1528
Mixed media on beech
84.7 x 57 cm
Kunstmuseum Basel,
Gift of Martha and Robert
von Hirsch, Basel
1977, inv. G 1977.37
cat. 33
Bust-length portrait of
a donor and St Catherine
c. 1508
Inner and outer faces
of an altarpiece shutter
Mixed media on oak
43 x 33 cm
Kunstmuseum Basel,
on loan from the
Kunsthaus Zürich
1985, inv. Dep 24
Matthias Grünewald
(Mathis Gothard Nithard)
(c. 1475/80–1528)
27
The crucifixion of Christ
c. 1515
Mixed media on limewood
74.9 x 54.4 cm
Kunstmuseum Basel,
acquired before 1775
inv. 269
cat.
cat.
Ambrosius Holbein
(c. 1494 – c. 1519)
cat. 13
School sign (teacher and
children), 1516
Mixed media on spruce
55.3 x 65.5 cm
Kunstmuseum Basel,
Amerbach-Kabinett, 1662
inv. 311
Hans Holbein
the Younger
(c. 1497/98–1543)
cat. 23
The death of the Virgin
1501
Lower half of the inner
face of the right shutter
from the Dominican
altarpiece, Frankfurt
am Main
Mixed media on fir
167.5 x 151.5 cm
Kunstmuseum Basel,
purchased with
contributions from
the Jakob BurckhardtStiftung, the Freiwilliger
Museumsverein, the
Birmann-Fonds and the
Felix Sarasin-Stiftung
1903, inv. 301
cat. 11
Double portrait of Jacob
Meyer zum Hasen and his
wife, Dorothea, née
Kannengiesser, 1516
Oil on limewood
39.7 x 31.9 cm (each)
Kunstmuseum Basel,
Museum Faesch, 1823
inv. 312
cat. 24
Portrait of the wife of Jörg
Fischer aged 34, 1512
Oil on limewood
35 x 26.6 cm
Kunstmuseum Basel,
Gift of the J. R. Geigy AG,
Basel, to mark the
company’s 200th
anniversary, 1958
inv. G 1958.7
cat. 14
School sign (teacher and
adults), 1516
Mixed media on fir
55.3 x 65.5 cm
Kunstmuseum Basel,
Amerbach-Kabinett, 1662
inv. 310
12
Portrait of Bonifacius
Amerbach, 1519
Mixed media on fir
29.9 x 28.3 cm
Kunstmuseum Basel,
Amerbach-Kabinett, 1662
inv. 314
cat.
cat. 15
Portrait of the Holbein
family: The artist’s wife
and the two eldest
children, c. 1528–29
Mixed media on paper,
figures silhouetted and
mounted on limewood
79.4 x 64.7 cm
Kunstmuseum Basel,
Amerbach-Kabinett, 1662
inv. 325
cat. 16–17
Empress Kunigunde, Basel
Minster and Emperor
Henry II; The Virgin and
Child, music-making
angels and St Pantalus
c. 1525–26 or 1528
Shutters of Basel
Minster organ
Distemper on canvas
approx. 282.5 x 455 cm
(overall width)
Kunstmuseum Basel,
transferred to the
collec­t ion of Basel
University, 1786, inv. 321
cat. 18
Lais Corinthiaca, 1526
Mixed media on limewood
35.6 x 26.7 cm
Kunstmuseum Basel,
Amerbach-Kabinett, 1662
inv. 322
cat. 19
The Man of Sorrows and
The mourning Virgin
c. 1518–20
Oil on limewood
29 x 19.5 cm (each)
Kunstmuseum Basel,
Amerbach-Kabinett, 1662
inv. 317
cat. 20
The dead Christ in the
tomb, 1521–22
Oil on limewood
32.4 x 202.1 cm
Kunstmuseum Basel,
Amerbach-Kabinett, 1662
inv. 318
cat. 21
The Passion: Christ on
the Mount of Olives,
The arrest of Christ,
Christ before Caiaphas,
The flagellation;
The crowning with thorns,
The carrying of the cross,
The crucifixion,
The entombment
c. 1524–26
Outer faces of two
altarpiece shutters
Oil on limewood
149.5 x 124 cm
Kunstmuseum Basel,
Gift of the Government
of Basel, 1770, inv. 315
34
Portrait of Erasmus of
Rotterdam writing, 1523
Mixed media on paper
mounted on fir
37.1 x 30.8 cm
Kunstmuseum Basel,
Amerbach-Kabinett, 1662
inv. 319
cat.
cat. 35
Tondo portrait of Erasmus
of Rotterdam, c. 1532
Oil on limewood
diam. 14.2 cm (including
the frame, which is carved
from the same piece
of wood as the support)
Kunstmuseum Basel,
Amerbach-Kabinett, 1662
inv. 324
Niklaus Manuel
Deutsch
(c. 1484–1530)
39
Pyramus and Thisbe
c. 1513–14
Mixed media, un­var­n ished, on canvas
151.5 x 161 cm
Kunstmuseum Basel,
Amerbach-Kabinett, 1662
inv. 421
cat.
cat. 40
Lucretia, 1517
Mixed media on
coniferous wood
32.4 x 26.6 cm
Kunstmuseum Basel,
Amerbach-Kabinett, 1662
inv. 420
cat. 41
Bathseba at her Bath and
Death embracing a young
woman, 1517
Obverse and reverse
of a panel
Mixed media on fir
38.2 x 29.2 cm
Kunstmuseum Basel,
Amerbach-Kabinett, 1662
inv. 419
BASEL Master,
16th century
cat. 29
Locket portrait of
Hieronymus Froben,
with lid, 1557– 58
Oil on pear
diam. 10–13.5 cm
Kunstmuseum Basel,
Museum Faesch, 1823
inv. 41
Bavarian Master,
15th century
cat. 28
Portrait of an old man
(‘Pius Joachim’), c. 1475
Mixed media on limewood
44 x 38.7 cm
Kunstmuseum Basel,
Amerbach-Kabinett, 1662
inv. 469
Netherlandish
Master, 16th century
cat. 42
Portrait of the Anabaptist
David Joris, c. 1550–55
Oil on oak
88.9 x 68.4 cm
Kunstmuseum Basel,
Gift of the Government
of Basel, 1714, inv. 561
Viennese Master,
active around 1400
cat. 25
The Man of Sorrows
and The Virgin and Child
c. 1400–1410
Diptych in original frame
with compartments for
relics
Mixed media on wood
40.7 x 29.6 cm (each)
Kunstmuseum Basel,
acquired by exchange
with the Historisches
Museum Basel, 1934
inv. 1617
A series of events during the exhibition
Hans Pleydenwurff
(c. 1425–1472), workshop
Konrad Witz
(c. 1400 – c. 1445/47)
cat. 26
The Man of Sorrows
c. 1456
Mixed media on limewood,
in original frame
41.4 x 33.3 cm
Kunstmuseum Basel, Gift
of the Amerbach-Stiftung,
1978, inv. 1651
Eight panels from the
Mirror of salvation
(Heilsspiegel) altarpiece,
probably from St
Leonhard’s church, Basel,
1435
Mixed media on canvas
mounted on oak
Tobias Stimmer
(1539–1584)
cat. 43–44
Portraits of Jacob
Schwytzer and his wife,
Elsbeth, née Lochmann
1564
Oil on limewood
193.6 x 67.9 cm (each)
Kunstmuseum Basel,
Birmann-Fonds, 1864
inv. 577 and 578
cat. 1
Ecclesia
86.5 x 80.5 cm
Kunstmuseum Basel,
purchased with
contributions from the
Government of Basel,
the Birmann-Fonds, the
Jakob BurckhardtStiftung and several art
lovers, 1928, inv. 1468
cat. 2
The angel of the
Annunciation
86.5 x 69 cm
Kunstmuseum Basel,
on loan from the Gottfried
Keller-Stiftung, 1928
inv. 1469
cat. 3
Synagogue
86 x 81 cm
Kunstmuseum Basel,
Gift of Peter VischerPassavant, 1843, inv. 640
cat. 4
St Bartholomew
99.5 x 69.5 cm
Kunstmuseum Basel, Gift
of Emilie Linder, Dienast
Collection, 1860, inv. 639
cat. 5
Abraham and Melchizedek
78 x 68.5 cm
Kunstmuseum Basel,
Gift of August La RocheBurckhardt, 1864, inv. 645
cat. 6
Antipater before Julius
Caesar
85.5 x 69.5 cm
Kunstmuseum Basel,
Gift of Peter VischerPassavant, 1843, inv. 644
cat. 7
Abishai before David
101.5 x 81 cm
Kunstmuseum Basel, Gift
of Emilie Linder, Dienast
Collection, 1860, inv. 641
8
Sibbecai and Benaiah
97.5 x 70 cm
Kunstmuseum Basel,
Gift of Wilhelm
Vischer-Bilfinger, 1865
inv. 642
cat.
cat. 9
St Christopher, 1435–45
Mixed media on oak
101.5 x 81 cm
Kunstmuseum Basel, Gift
of August La RocheBurckhardt, 1868, inv. 646
cat. 10
The meeting of Joachim
and Anne at the Golden
Gate, c. 1437–40
Left shutter from the
high altarpiece in the
Cistercian monastery
of Olsberg, Aargau
Mixed media on canvas
mounted on spruce
158 x 120.5 cm
Kunstmuseum Basel,
Gift of Louise BachofenBurckhardt, 1894, inv. 647
Alte Meister – Neue Perspektiven
Old Masters from the Kunstmuseum on show at the Museum der Kul­
turen: this meeting of two very different worlds affords an opportunity
to take a fresh look at both collections. In a series of evening events
conducted in German we aim to set up dialogues between the Old Master
paintings and selected ethnological objects. Pairs of curators in various
combinations, one from each museum, will address social, political and
religious issues with a view to discovering cultural differences and sim­
ilarities.
Wed., 24 June 2015, 6:30 – 7:30 p.m.
Kleider machen Leute: Mode, Repräsentation
und Realien der Macht
Katharina Georgi (Assistant Curator, Old Masters,
KM) & Stephanie Lovász (Curator, South, Central
and East Asia, MKB)
Wed., 20 January 2016, 6:30 – 7:30 p.m.
Leib und Seele, Dies- und Jenseits und wie
der Tod das Leben prägt
Bodo Brinkmann (Curator, Old Masters, KM) &
Stephanie Lovász (Curator, South, Central and
East Asia, MKB)
Wed., 16 September 2015, 6:30 – 7:30 p.m.
Kunstsinn, Wissensdurst und Welterkenntnis:
Basler Persönlichkeiten und ihre Sammlungen
Bodo Brinkmann (Curator, Old Masters, KM) &
Richard Kunz (Curator, South East Asia, MKB)
Wed., 24 February 2016, 6:30 – 7:30 p.m.
(Wahl-)Verwandtschaften und was die Gesellschaft
zusammenhält
Katharina Georgi (Assistant Curator, Old Masters,
KM) & Béatrice Voirol (Curator, Oceania, MKB)
Wed., 11 November 2015, 6:30 – 7:30 p.m.
Schriftkultur – Bildkultur: Die Bedeutung von
Schrift und Bild als Träger von Wissen und
Traditionen
Katharina Georgi (Assistant Curator, Old Masters,
KM) & Alexander Brust (Curator, The Americas,
MKB)
Admission free, no booking required
The events are sponsored by the Asscociation
of the FREUNDE DES KUNSTMUSEUMS BASEL
und des Museums für Gegenwartskunst
This publication appears in
connection with the exhibition
Holbein. Cranach. Grünewald
Masterpieces from the
Kunstmuseum Basel
Museum der Kulturen Basel
11 April 2015 — 28 February 2016
Published by
Kunstmuseum Basel
Text by
Bodo Brinkmann
Edited by
Katharina Georgi
For further information and
bibliography (in German),
visit ‘Collection Online’ at
www.kunstmuseumbasel.ch or
consult the publication Kunst­
museum Basel: The Masterpieces,
Hatje Cantz Verlag, 405 pp.
with 160 colour ills., CHF 65,
obtainable from
www.shop.kunstmuseumbasel.ch
Designed by
sofie’s Kommunikationsdesign,
Zürich
Typeface: Centennial
Paper: Lessebo Smooth White FSC®
Lithography and printing by
Gremper AG, Basel-Pratteln
Photographic acknowledgements:
All photographs: Kunstmuseum
Basel, Martin P. Bühler
ISBN 978-3-7204-0221-7
German edition:
978-3-7204-0220-0
French edition:
978-3-7204-0222-4
Kunstmuseum Basel
Director:
Bernhard Mendes Bürgi
Head of Finance:
Stefan Charles
Curator: Bodo Brinkmann
Assistant Curator: Katharina Georgi
Registrars:
Charlotte Gutzwiller, Maya Urich
Conservation:
Werner Müller, Amelie Jensen,
Carole Joos
Exhibition installation:
Stefano Schaller, Andreas Schweizer
Photography:
Martin P. Bühler
Press and PR:
Michael Mathis, Christian Selz,
Alain Hollfelder
Art education:
Gaby Fierz, Michelle Huwiler,
Regina Mathez
Museum der Kulturen Basel
Münsterplatz 20, 4001 Basel
Switzerland
www.mkb.ch
Opening times:
Tues. – Sun. 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.
First Wed. of each month
10 a.m. – 8 p.m.
Open on:
25 and 26 Dec. 2015, 1 Jan. 2016
closed on:
24 Dec. (Christmas Eve) and
31 Dec. 2015 (New Year’s Eve),
15 – 17 Feb. 2016 (carnival)
© 2015 Kunstmuseum Basel
and the author