Saint John the Evangelist on Patmos

Artist Erhard Altdorfer (German, 1485? - 1562?)

Formerly attributed to Hans Baldung Grien (German, 1484/1485 - 1545)

Dateca. 1515

MediumOil on panel (pine?); transferred to a modern support

DimensionsOverall: 47 1/2 × 30 3/8 inches (120.65 × 77.15 cm)

Credit LinePurchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust

Object number48-7

SignedNone

InscribedInscribed on hem of saint's cloak, interspersed with illegible decorative marks resembling letters: MARIA VIRGINE / SAN[T]CV[S] IONANES / AVE MARIA GRACIA PL[ENA] / DOMINUS T[ECU]M

On View

Not on view

Collections

European Art

Terms

DescriptionSt. John the Evangelist in red robe at left, holding pen in right hand and sharpener in left, engaged in writing the gospel. Top right in sky, vision of the Virgin and Child. Trees and rocks in middleground, two birds in foreground to right, lake, mountains, castles in background.Exhibition History

Exhibition History

The Centennial Exposition: Paintings, Sculpture, & Graphic Arts, Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, Dallas, TX, June 6-November 29, 1936, no. 1.

Masterpiece of the Month, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, November 1949, no cat.

Provenance

Kloster Lambach, Lambach, Austria, by 1927;

With A. S. Drey Gallery, Munich, by 1929;

Purchased from A. S. Drey by Richard Ederheimer, New York, by October 5, 1929-December 13, 1946 [1];

With Schaeffer Galleries, New York, stock no. 1145, on joint account with Richard Ederheimer, New York and Matthiesen Gallery, London, as by Hans Baldung Grien, December 13, 1946-1948 [2];

Purchased from Schaeffer and Matthiesen by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1948.

NOTES:

[1] According to Richard Ederheimer, in a letter to Robert B. Harshe, Director, Art Institute of Chicago, October 5, 1929, and in a letter to Equitable Trust Co., October 15, 1929, Archives of American Art, Richard Ederheimer Papers, Correspondence, Box 7, folder Business 1929.

[2] Schaeffer bought a 2/3 share from Ederheimer on December 13, 1946, and subsequently bought the remaining 1/3 share on April 1, 1947. Schaeffer sold a 1/3 share to Matthiesen on September 4, 1947. The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, Special Collections, Schaeffer Galleries Records, Box 8.

Published References

Otto Benesch, “Erhard Altdorfer als Maler,” Jahrbuch der Preuβischen Kunstsammlungen 57 (1936): 157-159, 162, 165, (repro.), as by Erhard Altdorfer.

Texas Centennial Exposition: Catalogue of the Exhibition of Paintings, Sculpture, & Graphic Arts, exh. cat. (Dallas, TX: Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, 1936), 13, as by Hans Baldung Grien.

Charles L. Kuhn, A Catalogue of German Paintings of the Middle Ages and Renaissance in American Collections (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1936), xiii, 50, (repro.), as by Hans Baldung Grien.

A Selection of Paintings by Old Masters (New York: Richard Ederheimer, 1936), unpaginated, (repro.), as by Hans Baldung Grien.

Hanna Luise Becker, Die Handzeichnungen Albrecht Altdorfers (Munich: Neuer Filser, 1938), 91.

Ulla Schumacher Stöver, “Erhard Altdorfer: Leben und Werk, Versuch einer Monographie des Künstlers” (PhD diss., University of Wurzburg, 1946): 33-40, 140-141.

Letter from Max J. Frieldländer to Schaeffer, 1947, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, Special Collections, Schaeffer Gallery Archives, box 13, as by Hans Baldung Grien.

Paul Gardner, “Nelson Gallery Marks 15^th Anniversary,” Art Digest 23, no. 14 (April 15, 1949): 12, (repro.), as by Hans Baldung Grien.

Paul Gardner, “The Nelson Gallery: New Installations Mark Its Fifteenth Anniversary,” Pictures on Exhibit 11, no. 7 (April 1949): 14-15, (repro.), as by Hans Baldung.

“The Athens in Missouri,” Art News 48, no. 2 (April 1949): 5, (repro.), as by Hans Baldung Grien.

“New Acquisitions,” Gallery News (Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum) 15, no. 7 (April 1949): unpaginated, as by Hans Baldung.

“Fifteenth Anniversary Celebration,” Gallery News (Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum) 15, no. 8 (May 1949): unpaginated, as by Hans Baldung.

“Masterpiece of the Month,” Gallery News (Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum) 15, no. 3 (December 1949): unpaginated, as by Hans Baldung Grien.

The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, The William Rockhill Nelson Collection, 3^rd ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1949), 73, (repro.); as by Hans Baldung Grien.

Letter from Edmund Schilling, February 28, 1954, NAMA curatorial files, as by Erhard Altdorfer.

Otto Benesch and Erwin M. Auer, Die Historia Friderici et Maximiliani (Berlin: Deutscher Verein für Kunstwissenschaft, 1957), 87, (repro.), as by Erhard Altdorfer.

Rev. John P. O’Connell, ed., The Holy Bible (Chicago: The Catholic Press, 1958), unpaginated, (repro.), as by Hans Baldung.

Karl Oettinger, Altdorfer-Studien (Nürnberg: Verlag Hans Carl, 1959), 97, 99-100, (repro.).

Ross E. Taggart, ed., Handbook of the Collections in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 4^th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1959), 82, 261, (repro.).

Otto Wutzel, ed., Die Kunst der Donauschule 1490-1540: Ausstellung des Landes Oberösterreich, exh. cat. (Linz: OÖ. Landesverlag, 1965), 76, (repro.).

Eva Benesch, ed., Otto Benesch: Collected Writings, vol. 3, German and Austrian Art of the 15^th and 16^th Centuries (London: Phaidon, 1972), 326-27, 332, (repro.).

Edmund Schilling, ed., Katalog der deutschen Zeichnungen: Alte Meister, vol. 1 (Munich: Prestel, 1973), 19.

Achim Hubel, “Albrecht Altdorfers Tafel: ‘Die beiden Johannes,’ Studien zu Form und Farbe in Altdorfers Gemälden,” Verhandlungen des Historischen Vereins für Oberpfalz und Regensburg / Historischer Verein für Oberpfalz und Regensburg 113 (1973), 165, (repro.).

Ross E. Taggart and George L. McKenna, eds., Handbook of the Collections in The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Missouri, vol. 1, Art of the Occident, 5^th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1973), 99, 259, (repro.).

Edward A. Armstrong, The Life and Love of the Bird: in Nature, Art, Myth and Literature (New York: Crown, 1975), 62, (repro.).

Katharina Packpfeiffer, “Studien zu Erhard Altdorfer” (PhD diss., Universität Wien, 1978), 137-38.

Letter from M. L. Wurfbain, July 7, 1982, NAMA curatorial files.

Maryan Wynn Ainsworth and Molly Faries, “Northern Renaissance Paintings: The Discovery of Invention,” The Saint Louis Art Museum Bulletin 18, no. 1 (Summer 1986): 37n37.

John Carmody and Denise Lardner Carmody, Interpreting the Religious Experience: A Worldview (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1987), 132, (repro.).

Hans Mielke, Albrecht Altdorfer: Zeichnungen, Deckfarbenmalerei, Druckgraphik, exh. cat. (Berlin: Reimer, 1987), 284.

Christopher S. Wood, Albrecht Altdorfer and the Origins of Landscape (University of Chicago Press, 1993), 295n139.

Maryan Wynn Ainsworth, ed., Petrus Christus in Renaissance Bruges: an Interdisciplinary Approach (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1995), 146.

Jane Turner, ed., The Dictionary of Art, vol. 1 (New York: Macmillan, 1996), 721.

Burton L. Dunbar, The Collections of The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: German and Netherlandish Paintings, 1450-1600 (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2005) 11-12, 20, 22, 54-64, (repro.)

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