Nativity

Object Name

Altarpiece

Artist/Maker

Netherlandish

Object Type

Miniature Altarpiece

Date

early 16th century

Medium

boxwood

Credit Line

Private Collection, The Hague, The Netherlands

Object Number

EXH.111916

Location

Not currently on display

Institution/Owner

Private Collection, The Hague, The Netherlands

Description

Miniature Altarpiece: Nativity with Annunciation to Shepherds

This finely carved miniature house altar is centred by the Nativity with the Annunciation to the Shepherds above within an arched frame carved at the top with a coat of arms as yet unidentified. It can be stylistically and technically compared with a group of prayer beads, miniature tabernacles and triptychs which date to the early years of the 16th century. Formerly ascribed to an Antwerp school, these are now suggested by Williamson to originate from Lower Rhine or North Netherlandish workshops based on the provenance or armorial identification of a number of those recorded. In addition to this Williamson links elements of style and construction with North Netherlandish furniture and metalwork of the period. Conversely, the Nativity scene on the present lot was clearly inspired by the Nativity in the influential Grimani Breviary which was produced in Ghent or Bruges and is now in Venice's Library of San Marco.

source: http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2012/important-old-maste…

Signature, Inscriptions, and Markings

Inscription

None

Markings

Unidentified coat of arms in middle of arch at top

Published References

Brummer sale 1979, lot 137; Jaap Leeuwenberg, De gebedsnoot van Eewert Jansz van Bleiswick en andere werken van Adam Dirksz (Ghent: Miscellanea Jozef Duverger, Bijdragen tot de Kunstgeschiedenis der Nederlanden II, 1968) p 621; Charles Mannheim, Catalogue des objets d’art et de haute curiosité … composant la collection de feu M. Charles Stein (Paris, 1899), 2127; Emile Molinier and Arthur Pabst, “Les sculpture en buis et pierre de Munich” La Collection Spitzer III (Paris: Maison Quantin, 1891) 256 no. 5

Catalogue Raisonné

Romanelli 75

Provenance

Frédéric Spitzer, Paris, by 1891; Paris, Mannheim and Chevallier, April 17-June 16, 1893, lot 2127; Nicolas Landau, Paris; Ernest Brummer, New York, acquired from the above in 1953; Galerie Koller, Zürich, 16-19 October 1979, lot 137. Sotheby's, New York, 26 January 2012, lot 270 (source: Sotheby's)

Previous Owner(s)

Frédéric Spitzer

Subjects

Christianity

Nativity

Coat of arms

Annunciation to the Shepherds