Ill-matched Couple

DESCRIPTION

Tools/Material:

- initial design may have been executed with a dry, drawing material (e. g. the collar and finger tips of the man’s right hand, the woman’s eyes); the design was then developed using a black, fluid medium and brush

Type/Ductus:

- freehand underdrawing

- thin lines, some short and curved, in places they appear to flicker and bead

Function:

- binding for the final painted version; the lines define the main contours and describe essential details and facial features; no representation of volume with hatching strokes

Deviations:

- only minor corrections were made to forms during the painting process; hardly any changes

INTERPRETATION

Attribution:

- not possible

Comments:

- after a pre-existing design

[Sandner, Smith-Contini, Heydenreich, cda 2020]

Panel made of oak boards (?)

The underdrawing is significant: freehand, fluid, made with a thin brush, very detailed and evident in IR images under the skin of the two figures. Sometimes it is a little flickering, and followed by characteristic painted small dots (not relating to pouncing). It also appears under the hat and hair and the man’s fur collar. The peculiarity of the underdrawing, showing some similarities with Cranach’s but also some differences, can be presumably referred to a specific personality of his workshop

The quality of the painting is very high, accurate but with evident simplifications to obtain decorations in the clothes and in the heads and headgear. The clouds and the red lights (vermillion) of the velvet dress of the woman are obtained working the painting when it was still fresh. Great ability in using wet-­on-­wet technique also for small details, as eyes and jewels. The flat and blur effect of the flesh tones is given by the use of a swab to match the lights with the main tone of the skin, sometimes employing directly fingers, as raking light details show.

Pigments include azurite for all the blue and grey-­ blue colours (sky, clouds, mountains), a copper-­ based green for the green areas, also mixed with lead-­based yellow (like lead-­tin yellow), as in the trees. A like lead-­tin yellow is used in the date and in the lighter yellow details, a yellow ochre for darker yellow areas. Vermillion, also mixed with black pigment, constitutes red dresses and flesh tones, together with lead white.

Technique and pigments are coherent with 16th century.

[unpublished examination report G. Poldi, 2018]

Thinned  and  cradled,  with  a  few  wormholes  on   the  verso. The  work  is  very  well   preserved,  with  a  few  retouches  over  the  old   varnish. The  microscopic  inspection of the  yellow-­painted   date  1528  indicates  it  is  coherent  with  the   painting,  while  the lighter  yellow  small  snake   under  it,  typical  signature  of  Cranach,  goes  inside the cracks  indicating  it  is  a  later  addition.

[unpublished examination report, G. Poldi, 2018]