Portrait of a Man, probably Johannes Feige

Portrait of a Man, probably Johannes Feige

Title

Portrait of a Man, probably Johannes Feige

[The National Gallery, revised 2011]

Painting on limewood

Medium

Painting on limewood

[The National Gallery, revised 2011]
[Klein, Report 1995]

The sitter's hair is grey-brown and his eyes are blue. He wears a high-necked white shirt under a black, diamond-patterned coat. A grey metal-framed purse made from a black textile hangs from his belt. The coat of arms at the top left is that of Johann Feige, Chancellor of Hesse

The sitter's hair is grey-brown and his eyes are blue. He wears a high-necked white shirt under a black, diamond-patterned coat. A grey metal-framed purse made from a black textile hangs from his belt. The coat of arms at the top left is that of Johann Feige, Chancellor of Hesse (1482? - 1543).

Attribution
Lucas Cranach the Elder

Attribution

Lucas Cranach the Elder

[The National Gallery, revised 2011]

Production date
about 1524 - 1534

Production date

about 1524 - 1534

[dated, the numbers '2' and '4' are not original]

Dimensions
Dimensions of support: 40.7 x 26.3 cm

Dimensions

  • Dimensions of support: 40.7 x 26.3 cm

  • [The National Gallery, revised 2011]

  • Dimensions of support: 40.7 x 26.1 cm

  • [http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/lucas-cranach-the-elder-portrait-of-a-man-probably-johann-feige/*/key-facts; accessed: 05.09.2011]

Signature / Dating

Artist's insignia at the top left, beneath the coat-of-arms: winged serpent with elevated wings, facing right and dated '1524' (numbers '2' and '4' not genuine).

Signature / Dating

  • Artist's insignia at the top left, beneath the coat-of-arms: winged serpent with elevated wings, facing right and dated '1524' (numbers '2' and '4' not genuine).

Inscriptions and Labels
  • at the upper left and right are two coats of arms
    The coat of arms upper left closely resembles …

Inscriptions and Labels

Inscriptions, Badges:

    • at the upper left and right are two coats of arms

  • The coat of arms upper left closely resembles that of Johann Feige, Chancellor of Hesse (1482?-1543).

  • Description: 'The shield is divided horizontally, the lower half is red, the upper shows three green fig leaves on a silver background. The helm is red-silver from the front and silver-red from the back. The crest: a virgin with a red and silver dress, a green wreath on her head, and holds fig branches in both raised hands.[1]

  • [1][Korn 1983, 12]

Stamps, Seals, Labels:

    • an inscription on the back of the panel, apparently in a nineteenth-century hand, identifies the sitter as Francis von Sickingen, the anglicised first name indicating that this was inscribed when the painting was in an English collection
    • another inscription on the back of the picture reads 'H. Doctor/Lüther 1778'
Owner
The National Gallery, London
Repository
The National Gallery, London
Location
London
CDA ID
UK_NGL_1925
FR (1978) Nr.
FR181
Persistent Link
https://lucascranach.org/en/UK_NGL_1925/

Provenance

  • according to previous gallery catalogues the picture was in an anonymous sale of 1902 at Christie's, London, but the sale has not been identified[1]
  • it entered the collection of John P. Heseltine, who presented it to the National Gallery in 1903 [2]

[1] According to [Levey, Cat. London 1959, 20], the sale was mentioned in Gallery catalogues up to 1929, but he failed to identify it (in fact, it appears only in the 1915 catalogue); it does not appear identifiably in any sales catalogues of the period preserved in the National Gallery. Earlier catalogues gave the provenance of the picture as Dr Luther 1778, information which appears to derive from the inscription on the reverse of the picture.
[2] National Gallery archive:
National Gallery Minutes of Board Meetings, 4th August 1903: 'Mr.J.P.Heseltine offered to present to the Gallery his "Portrait of a Man" by Lucas Cranach the Elder. The picture was inspected by the Board and it was resolved that this offer be accepted with the special gratitude of the Board to Mr.Heseltine for this fine example of a Master hitherto unrepresented in the Gallery.'
Letter Book: Letter from Hawes Turner, 6th August 1903, to Dolman and Sons, asking them to make the following tablets for the Cranach: 'Presented by Mr.J.P.Heseltine'; '1925 Portrait of a Man by Lucas Cranach the Elder/B 1472 D 1553 German School'
[The National Gallery, revised 2016]

Exhibitions

Sheffield, Arts Council of Great Britain, Graves Art Gallery, (Long Term Loan) 12 September 1966-13 February 1974; 25 March-21 August 1975 and 28 July 1978-29 September 1993
Basel 1974, No. 610
London 1997
Vienna, Munich 2010/2011

Literature

Reference on page Catalogue Number Figure / Plate
Lange 2015 36-37 Fig. 9
AuthorJustus Lange
TitleLucas Cranach und die Landgrafschaft Hessen
Publicationin Julia Carrasco, Justus Lange, Benjamin D. Spira, Timo Trümper, Stiftung Schloss Friedenstein Gotha and Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel, eds., Bild und Botschaft. Cranach im Dienst von Hof und Reformation, [Exhib. Cat. Gotha, Kassel]
Place of PublicationHeidelberg
Year of Publication2015
Pages29-42
Show Literature
Campbell et al. 1997
AuthorLorne Campbell, Susan Foister, Ashok Roy
TitleMethods and materials of Northern European painting in the National Gallery, 1400-1500
JournalNational Gallery Technical Bulletin
Issue18
Year of Publication1997
Pages6-55
Show Literature
Korn 1983
AuthorHans-Enno Korn
TitleDer Wappenbrief Kaiser Maximilians I. für den Hessischen Kanzler Johann Feige.
JournalZeitschrift des Vereins für Hessische Geschichte und Landeskunde
Issue89 (1982/83)
Year of Publication1983
Pages9-15
Show Literature
Friedländer, Rosenberg 1979 106 181 Fig. 181
AuthorMax J. Friedländer, Jakob Rosenberg
EditorG. Schwartz
TitleDie Gemälde von Lucas Cranach
Place of PublicationBasel, Boston, Stuttgart
Year of Publication1979
Show Literature
Exhib. Cat. Basel 1974/1976 685, 692 610 Fig. 339
AuthorDieter Koepplin, Tilman Falk
TitleLukas Cranach. Gemälde, Zeichnungen und Druckgraphik
Volume1, 2
Place of PublicationBasel, Stuttgart
Year of Publication1974
Link http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bsz:16-diglit-104522
Show Literature
Brockhusen 1968
AuthorHans Joachim von Brockhusen
TitleEin Bildnis des Kanzlers Johann Feige und seine Kopie.
JournalZeitschrift des Vereins für Hessische Geschichte und Landeskunde
Issue79 (1968)
Year of Publication1968
Pages123-127
Show Literature
Cat. London 1959 19, 20
AuthorMichael Levey
TitleNational Gallery Catalogues. The German School
Place of PublicationLondon
Year of Publication1959
Show Literature
Friedländer, Rosenberg 1932 153
AuthorMax J. Friedländer, Jakob Rosenberg
TitleDie Gemälde von Lucas Cranach
Place of PublicationBerlin
Year of Publication1932
Link http://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/friedlaender1932
Show Literature

Research History / Discussion

'Levey, believing the date of 1524 to be reliable, thought the sitter here too old to be Feige, who would have been about forty-three in 1524.10 However, more recent examination has shown that there is little or no original paint in the positions of the digits (see Technical Notes). The traces of the third digit of the date originally inscribed, which gives the decade of the portrait, indicate it could have been a 2, 3, 5 or 7. If the last two are excluded, since Cranach died in 1553, and the style and appearance of the sitter seem to belong to a period earlier than the very end of his career, the date of the portrait would be either 152[?] or 153[?]. Although the style of the subject’s hair and dress perhaps indicate the earlier of the two dates, as the sitter is not a young, fashionable man, a date in the early 1530s cannot be excluded; Feige would then have been about fifty-three, an age which might accord better with the sitter’s apparent age. The sitter in this portrait is therefore plausibly identified as Johann Feige.'

[Susan Foister, 'Lucas Cranach the Elder, Portrait of Johannes Feige’ published online 2015, from 'The German Paintings before 1800', London, forthcoming.] www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/research/lucas-cranach-the-elder-portrait-of-johannes-feige

For complete discussion of painting see:

[Susan Foister, 'Lucas Cranach the Elder, Portrait of Johannes Feige’ published online 2015, from 'The German Paintings before 1800', London, forthcoming.] www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/research/lucas-cranach-the-elder-portrait-of-johannes-feige

  • Portrait of a Man, probably Johannes Feige, about 1524 - 1534

Images

Compare images
  • overall
  • overall
  • reverse
  • x_radiograph

Documents

Technical studies

2016Technical examination / Scientific analysis

Support

The support is a limewood (Tilia sp.) panel with vertical grain.[1] The thickness is 1.1 cm. The panel is formed from two boards; the join in the middle of the panel is 12.6 cm from the right edge. Around all four edges of the back of the panel is a rebate about 0.8 cm wide where the wood has been reduced in thickness to 0.5 cm.

[1]Confirmed by Peter Klein: report of 18 April 1995 in the NG dossier. The 1959 catalogue erroneously identified the wood as beech.

Ground and Imprimatura

The ground is white and consists of chalk (EDX and FTIR analysis). There is no sign of canvas between ground and panel, but there are tangled fibres visible in the X-radiographs which must be either below or within the ground. The ground and paint end with a barbe at the top, bottom and right edges, leaving a narrow strip of bare wood which would have been covered by an engaged frame (the left edge is more damaged and repaint extends to the panel edge). In places the ground has seeped under the frame onto the wood

Underdrawing

No underdrawing was detected by examination with infrared reflectography, nor were any traces revealed by examination with the microscope in areas such as the contours of the face, which might be expected to be underdrawn.

Paint Layers and Gilding

The paint is generally thin and skilfully worked wet-in-wet in places, for example in the decoration on the purse and the hair. In the black paint, in addition to the black pigment, some potassium zinc sulphate, probably a form of white vitriol, is present as an additive.[1]

The medium of the black background paint was identified by GC–MS analysis as heat-bodied linseed oil.

[1]Potassium, zinc and sulphur were detected by EDX analysis in the black paint. White vitriol is zinc sulphate, and potassium zinc sulphate could be another form of it. A small but increasing number of occurrences of both of these compounds have been reported in paintings from across Europe. White vitriol is mentioned in documentary sources in recipes for the preparation of oils and also as an additive on the palette.

[Susan Foister, 'Lucas Cranach the Elder, Portrait of Johannes Feige’ published online 2015, from 'The German Paintings before 1800', London, forthcoming.]

www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/research/lucas-cranach-the-elder-portrait-of-johannes-feige

  • written by The National Gallery, London

18.04.1995Scientific analysis

  • Identification of wood species / Dendrochronology

Support

Identification of wood species: limewood (Tilia sp.)

  • analysed by Peter Klein

03. 1995Scientific analysis

  • Micro-sampling / cross-sections
  • Instrumental material analysis

Media analysis:

FTIR 1995-03: oil medium (black background, upper right)

GC-MS 1995-03: heat-bodied linseed oil

  • analysed by The National Gallery, London
  • X-radiography
  • x_radiograph

Condition Reports

Date2016

The picture is in quite good condition.

Support:

Balsa blocks have been attached in the rebates to bring the thickness of these areas up to that of the main part of the panel. The non-original reinforcing wood that was removed in 2010 had been slightly inset into the back of the panel and so now there is a border about 3.6 cm wide around three sides of the panel where the wood is 0.1 cm thinner and some worm channels are visible. On the left, a split had been mended using a wider piece of wood, but this has been replaced with a thin piece of balsa to reinforce it.

Paint layers:

There is damage to the paint on the left associated with the split, and further scattered losses, including some in a circular shape in the coat of arms top right and a larger one in the sitter's neck.

The winged serpent used as Cranach's signature is thinly painted but intact; on examination with a microscope, the paint appears to include some lead-tin yellow. In the area of the date only fragments of original paint survive, also apparently including lead-tin yellow. The shapes of the numbers now visible have been made by incising the background adjacent to the fragments of paint to reveal the light ground and wood in order to create the date 1524. Not enough original paint remains to be certain of the date: the digit which has the most paint is the 5; the penultimate digit only has paint across the top and so might originally have been a 2, 3, 5 or 7; only tiny traces remain of the 1. The final digit has traces of original paint along the horizontal bar of the 4.

The coats of arms are also somewhat damaged. In that on the left the female demi-figure wears something green on her head but damage makes it impossible to identify. Her left arm is missing, but a patch of original green paint suggests that it may have been raised like the right, which is holding up a branch with green leaves.

[Susan Foister, 'Lucas Cranach the Elder, Portrait of Johannes Feige' published online 2015, from 'The German Paintings before 1800', London, forthcoming.]

www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/research/lucas-cranach-the-elder-portrait-of-johannes-feige

Date1903

  • Presented to the gallery. Actual state: good, no repairs

[National Gallery archive]

Conservation History

Date2010

  • a non-original reinforcing wooden framework was removed from the back.

[Susan Foister, 'Lucas Cranach the Elder, Portrait of Johannes Feige' published online 2015, from 'The German Paintings before 1800', London, forthcoming.]

www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/research/lucas-cranach-the-elder-portrait-of-johannes-feige

Date02. 1974

Support:

Wood. Lime with a cedar frame glued on to the back. Batten of the frame, right as seen from the back is wider and newer than the other three and is presumably that put on by Morill in 1929. The framework is restricting movement and should be removed. Panel has been surrounded with mahogany strips, aprox. 1 cm wide, which are glued to the back frame with extends beyond the original panel

Paint and ground:

This has been extended from its original painted edges to the edges of the panel, which varies unevenly from 4-6 cm from side to side. The surface of the paint is very uneven around the crack in the panel, running vertically on the left side. This is probably due the warm and dry rot damage lying beneath the paint. The whole of the background and dark clothes of the sitter are scumbled over with blackish repaint which has been put on to cover numerous minute damages and whitish cracks. This repaint has been used to make the thumb of the sitter's right hand thinner. There are a number of small damages on the head of the sitter, especially on the right of the neck. A cleaning test (top right) shows a ring of damages on and near the coat of arms; cause not known.

Treatment proposed:

Remove frame from back of panel. Clean off varnish and repaints. Fill in the dented uneven paint surface around crack and old repairs; retouch where necessary; revarnish.

[Examination by A. W. Lucas, Feb. 1974]

  • cleaned and restored by Lucas

[National Gallery archive]

  • conservation treatment by A. W. Lucas

Date09. 1929

In consequence of a perpendicular crack on the left of the panel surviving through the coat of arms, widening towards the top, and flaking at the edges

Removed the batten along the left edge of the panel and after closing and securing the crack, replaced the batten by a wider one, and secured the loose paint on the surface. Holes filled and tinted out by Holder

[National Gallery archive]

Date1908

  • repaired and varnished

28th July 1908: The Director reported that the Lucas Cranach had been sent to Mr. Buttery for repair and been returned in accordance with the Resolution of 7th July 1908.'

[National Gallery archive]

  • conservation treatment by Buttery

Citing from the Cranach Digital Archive

Entry with author
<author's name>, 'Portrait of a Man, probably Johannes Feige', <title of document, data entry or image>. [<Date of document or image>], in: Cranach Digital Archive, https://lucascranach.org/en/UK_NGL_1925/ (Accessed {{dateAccessed}})
Entry with no author
'Portrait of a Man, probably Johannes Feige', <title of document, data entry or image>. [<Date of document, entry or image>], in: Cranach Digital Archive, https://lucascranach.org/en/UK_NGL_1925/ (Accessed {{dateAccessed}})

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