Dürer in Poland - part V

The artist's students in Poland

Albrecht Dürer trained and influenced several major Renaissance artists, particularly in Nuremberg.

Hans von Kulmbach (ca. 1480-1522), a close pupil and assistant to the painter, is believed to have been active in Kraków during the periods 1509-1511 and 1514-1515; there, he produced numerous works for Sarmatian patrons - most notably Johann Boner (1462-1523), banker to King Sigismund I, as well as for the King himself. He is considered the author of the paintings on the reverse sides of the wings of the Pławno triptych, depicting Christus Rex and Maria Regina, now held at the National Museum in Warsaw (panels, 145.2 x 46.5 cm, inv. Śr.18/4; Śr.18/5). This triptych likely served as the model for the silver altarpiece commissioned by the king and crafted in Albrecht Glim's workshop in Nuremberg. The state of preservation of these two panels is poor; moreover, they were likely intended to serve merely as initial "sketches" for the monarch's approval, yet their style also allows for their attribution to Dürer's workshop. The altarpiece created by Glim was destroyed by Swedish forces during the Deluge (1655-1660); we will therefore likely never know whether the wings were painted by Dürer.

It was most likely Hans, or his workshop, who created the bust-length portrait of Margravine Sophia Jagiellon (1464-1512), sister of Sigismund I, in the early 16th century. This painting, now in a private collection (oil on panel, 37.2 x 28.9 cm), forms a pair with the portrait of Sophia's husband, Margrave Frederick I of Brandenburg-Ansbach (1460-1536); furthermore, in the early 19th century, Franz Wolfgang Röhrich (1787-1834) copied similar three-quarter-length portraits of the Margravine and her husband (Metropolitan Museum of Art, inv. 07.245.2 and 07.245.1). Kulmbach is also the artist behind the splendid portrait of the Margravine's son, Casimir (1481-1527), painted in 1511 (Alte Pinakothek in Munich, inv. 9482).

Kulmbach's stay in Poland is no longer a matter of dispute today; however, at the end of the 19th century, Leonard Lepszy struggled to convince public opinion of it, as he explained in his article (after "Kultura epoki jagiellońskiej w świetle wystawy zabytków w 500 letnią rocznicę odnowienia Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego", p. 58-62). Many of his works were lost during the country's turbulent history, including during the Second World War, when several were looted by German occupation forces. One such work was a double-sided panel from the collection of Katarzyna Potocka, née Branicka (1825-1907), which had been housed at the "Pod Baranami" Palace in Kraków (panel, 75 x 50 cm, inv. 274). One side depicted the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, while the other showed Saint Barbara. Like the Saint Catherine of Alexandria held by the Czartoryski Museum (panel, 56 x 38.2 cm, inv. MNK XII-328), this piece was a fragment of a side wing from a triptych originating in the Pauline church at Skałka in Kraków. The triptych's central panel, depicting the Adoration of the Magi, is now in the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin (panel, 158.9 x 112.8 cm, inv. 596A; signed and dated center-left: 1511 / HK in ligature). Only one fragment of this triptych remains at the Skałka monastery; it depicts the Flight into Egypt and, on the reverse, the lower part of the figure of Saint Barbara.

Given that the Dormition of the Virgin panel, featuring a donor bearing the Rawicz family coat of arms, held at the Czartoryski Museum (inv. MNK XII-341) was previously thought to be part of this triptych, it was assumed that the patron was Stanisław Jarocki (d. 1515), castellan of Zawichost (after "Hans Suess z Kulmbachu" by Józef Muczkowski and Józef Zdanowski, p. 26). However, as that this panel is now attributed to Michael Lancz von Kitzingen (a work painted in 1522 for the Ożarowski Chapel in Wawel Cathedral) and is significantly larger than the other panels, the hypothesis that the Skałka triptych was commissioned by Jarocki appears less likely.

Lepszy described the panel depicting Saint Barbara as a work "reminiscent of the harmony and coloring of the Venetian masters". She is shown wearing a crown and a low-cut gown, characteristic of the Sarmatian fashion of the first quarter of the 16th century. Similar costumes appear in the scene of the Self-burial of Saint John the Evangelist, painted by Kulmbach in 1516 for the altarpiece commissioned by Johann Boner (St. Mary's Basilica in Kraków). As this scene is believed to include a portrait of the patron on the left, the ladies depicted on the right are likely Queen Barbara Zapolya (d. 1515) and Johann's wife, Szczęsna Morsztynówna.

The composition of the Skałka triptych draws heavily on the Paumgartner Altarpiece, painted by Dürer around 1500 (Alte Pinakothek in Munich, inv. 701-706), in which the figures of saints depicted on the panels are disguised portraits of the donors: the brothers Stephan Paumgartner (1480-1525), shown on the left as Saint George, and Lukas Paumgartner (d. 1515), on the right as Saint Eustace (compare "The Cult of Saint Katherine of Alexandria in Late-Medieval Nuremberg" by Anne Simon, p. 273). Consequently, the depictions of Saint Catherine and Saint Barbara on the Skałka triptych were likely also portraits of real individuals connected to the altarpiece's patron. Furthermore, probably during the 1520s, an unknown follower of Hans von Kulmbach created a similar triptych for Sandomierz Cathedral (now housed in the Diocesan Museum). This follower of Kulmbach altered several elements, notably the figure of the Virgin Mary on the central panel. The left panel, which has survived, is believed to depict Jogaila of Lithuania.

Georg Pencz (ca. 1500-1550) is another prominent pupil of Dürer whose ties to Poland are well documented in scholarly literature. In July 1535, he received payment for fourteen paintings depicting the Passion cycle, intended for the reverse side of the wings of the silver altar for the Sigismund Chapel at Wawel Castle (Sic Georgio Pinczenstain pictori, qui laborem extrinsecus pictori[s] ornat, dati ad laborem et rationem monetae fl 290). He executed this major, prestigious commission for the royal mausoleum's high altar, likely basing his work on drawings by Hans Dürer. Just like the main altar, created by Melchior Baier the Elder, the panels were produced in Nuremberg.

Pencz stayed in Italy from 1526 to 1528/1529, and again around 1539. After the death of Crispin Herrant in 1549, he accepted the position of court painter to Duke Albert of Prussia, a cousin of Sigismund II Augustus (appointed on September 6, 1550). While traveling to Królewiec, the painter and his son Egidius died unexpectedly in Wrocław in October 1550 (after "Georg Pencz: Between Nuremberg, Cracow and Königsberg" by Katrin Dyballa, p. 3, 5, 7). Both were likely buried in the cemetery of the Church of St. Mary Magdalene (van mayster gorge bentze eyn maler van nurbergk; van egydiuss dess oben geschriben mayster gorge son, after "Georg Pencz ..." by Adam Morawiec, p. 132-133).

The painting by Pencz from the Dominican Monastery in Kraków was likely created around the same time as the panels of the silver altar. It depicts the Coronation of the Virgin (panel, 66.8 x 91.5 cm). According to the convent's archives, the work came from private donations and formed the upper section of a larger composition. It appears to be inspired by a 1510 engraving by Dürer, similar to the one featured in the Wedelicki Trilogy (Archdiocesan Museum in Warsaw).

Two other important paintings by Pencz held in Polish museums exhibit a more Italianate style and draw heavily on Venetian painting (notably inviting comparison with the works of Bernardino Licinio, a contemporary of Pencz). These are Caritas Romana of 1538 in the National Museum in Warsaw, acquired from the Jan Popławski collection in 1935 (oil on canvas, 76 x 53.5 cm, inv. M.Ob.823 MNW, earlier 77082, signed and dated lower left: 15 PG 38), and Lot and his daughters of 1544, held at Wawel Castle (oil on panel, 93 x 124 cm, inv. ZKnW-PZS 7055, dated and signed lower right: 1544 / GP). A drawing based on this latter composition, signed by Pencz, is held at the Albertina in Vienna (inv. 20699, with the monogram GP in the lower right corner). This work is identified as the one inventoried in 1718 in the Imperial Treasury and Art Chamber in Prague; it likely served as a preparatory sketch (or ricordo) and bears the artist's handwritten annotations regarding the color palette.

That same year, 1544, the painter produced two other significant compositions inspired by Italian art. One of them, held at the National Museum in Wrocław, depicts Christ crowned with thorns (oil and tempera on panel, 47 x 37 cm, inv. MNWr VIII-2301, signed and dated upper left: 15 GP 44). This work draws inspiration from the art of Andrea Solario (ca. 1465-1524), a painter of the Milanese school, and originated in the collection of Johann Sigismund Haunold (1634-1711), a patrician and collector from Wrocław. It is possible that the painting arrived in Wrocław as early as 1544, as the city's Archdiocesan Museum also holds a painting on a convex panel depicting Christ as the Man of Sorrows (Ecce Homo); likely dating from the same period, it is executed in Pencz's style, possibly by a Silesian painter trained in Pencz's workshop. Another work is the portrait of a young man wearing a prominent codpiece, housed in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence and inspired by the portraits of Agnolo Bronzino (inv. 1890, n. 1891). Interestingly, the sitter in this latter portrait is, according to my identification, Ulrich III Fugger (1526-1584), the son of Catherine Thurzo de Bethlenfalva (ca. 1488-1535) from Kraków; he was painted by Pencz shortly before beginning his studies in Bologna in 1544. Likely around 1550, shortly before his arrival in Wrocław, Pencz also created a beautiful portrait of Otto Henry, Count Palatine of Neuburg and a relative of King Sigismund II Augustus (Hermitage Museum, inv. ГЭ-4766).

The "Song on the Death of His Grace King Sigismund I the Old" (Piesn o smierci krola iego miłosci Starego Sigmunda pierwssego), for four voices, published in Kraków around 1548, features a woodcut on the verso of the title page, signed with the monogram CS (National Library of Poland, SD XVI.O.140). Its author was most likely Crispin Scharffenberg (ca. 1519-1576), originally from Lubań in Upper Lusatia, trained in Kraków but active in Silesia. The woodcut is a copy of an earlier work by Hans Springinklee, a pupil and collaborator of Albrecht Dürer, created around 1518 for an edition of Koberger's Hortulus Animae (British Museum, inv. 1895,0122.423). A few years earlier, in 1522, several woodcuts by another of Dürer's pupils, Hans Leonard Schäufelein, were published in Kraków in Baltazar Opec's work Żywot wssechmocnego syna bożego, pana Jezu Krysta ..., dedicated to Sigismund I's sister Princess Elizabeth Jagiellon (1482-1517) (Jagiellonian Library, BJ St. Dr. Cim. 8032). Schäufelein is also considered the artist behind a finely painted Portrait of a man in a yellow jacket, now held at the National Museum in Warsaw (oil on panel, 41 x 32 cm, inv. M.Ob.297 MNW). For a long time, this work was thought to be by Dürer, not only because of the "AD" monogram in the upper-left corner, but also due to the painting's style. It was likely created around 1507, shortly after the painter left Dürer's studio. The painting comes from the collection of Cyprian Lachnicki (1824-1906) in Warsaw.

The connection between another prominent pupil of Dürer, Hans Baldung Grien (1484/1485-1545), and Poland has fallen into oblivion, as has the major work he created for patrons from Sarmatia: the depiction of Saint Stanislaus and Saint Florian, accompanied by the coats of arms of Bishop Jan Konarski (1447-1525) in the Kraków Missal, published in Strasbourg in 1510 (Kórnik Library, sygn.Cim.Qu.2857). He also created several other woodcuts for this volume, as well as the print depicting ​elected Queen Wanda from the Sarmatiae Europae descriptio, published in 1578 (National Library of Poland, SD XVI.F.604). 

Several other stylistically related woodcuts appear in a work titled Christophori Kobilienski, eqvitis Poloni, Variorvm epigrammatvm ad Stanislavm Rozimontanvm libellvs (Jagiellonian Library, BJ St. Dr. Cim. 4417), written by the nobleman Krzysztof Kobylieński (ca. 1520-1565), probably a courtier to the Hetman Jan Amor Tarnowski (1488-1561). Published in Kraków in 1558, this book contains, in addition to engravings depicting Jagiellonian monarchs, a medallion portrait of Erasmus of Rotterdam (likely by Hans Lützelburger; reproduced twice) and a copy of Hans Springinklee's David and Bathsheba (British Museum, inv. E,7.239) - four magnificent woodcuts in the style of Baldung. 

The first depicts Saint Stanislaus raising the knight from the dead (IN IMAGINEM STANISLAI, p. 15); it is stylistically close to Baldung's Saint Valentine (British Museum, inv. 1900,1019.23).

The second is a profile portrait of "a certain Italian heroine" (IN IMAGINEM CVIVSDAM HEROINÆ ITALA DONO DATAM, p. 35). According to the poem, this woodcut reproduces a portrait given as a gift - presumably to the Hetman Jan Amor Tarnowski. The poet praises the painter's talent, describing him as "greater than the great Apelles", while the woman - possessing "noble beauty", a "gentle face", and "radiating majesty" - surpasses the "holy spouse of Jove" (i.e., Juno, queen of the gods) and the "Cyprian goddess" (Venus). This context strongly suggests that the image is a portrait of Queen Bona Sforza, who is mentioned in another poem within the volume. Other elements support this identification: a profile portrait consistent with the old Milanese tradition, Central European attire from the 1530s, a turban-style headdress indicating marital status (matron with covered hair), and the sitter's resemblance to a cameo bearing Bona's likeness held by the Metropolitan Museum (inv. 17.190.869). The image also recalls portraits of the queen by Cranach the Elder (identified by me) as well as an anonymous 19th-century drawing based on a lost portrait of the queen from 1540 (Jagiellonian Library, BJ Graf. I.R. 2326). The costume is similar in these works, and in both images, the sitter holds a plant: an olive branch in the 1540 portrait and a flower in the woodcut.

The musical symbols appearing to the right of the woodcut depicting Queen Bona are also of great interest. The Queen was a well-known patron of music and these symbols may well involve the technique of soggetto cavato - that is, a subject carved out of the vowels, much like the Missa Hercules dux Ferrariae composed by Josquin des Prez. That work was dedicated to Ercole I d'Este (1431-1505), Duke of Ferrara and husband of Eleonora of Aragon (1450-1493), a relative of Bona. The poem devoted to the portrait of the "Italian heroine" is preceded by the one titled "On the Pleasure of Venus" (DE VENERIS VOLVPTATE), which warns against excessive or ruinous carnal desire.

The third woodcut depicts a voivode's daughter named Sophia (AD VIRGINEM QUANDAM PALATINI FILIAM SERTA DONATA, p. 38). It shows an unmarried young woman with loose hair wearing a wreath of flowers, while the accompanying poem speaks of the fleeting nature of beauty and the enduring nature of the spirit. The subject may be Zofia Tęczyńska (d. 1588), daughter of the Voivode of Sandomierz, Jan Tęczyński (1492-1541). She was a Catholic and married the Protestant Stanisław Ostroróg (1519-1568) in 1544.

The last print depicts a personification of death in the form of a skeleton wielding a scythe (p. 59). A copy of this print, executed by a woodcutter from the circle of Maciej Scharffenberg, was published in Kraków in 1542 on the title page of Śmierci z Mistrzem dwojakie gadania ...; the original prints were therefore produced prior to that date, likely in the 1530s or around 1540, and the woodblocks presumably originate from the Kobylieński collection.

The probable connection to Poland, and, more broadly, to the Jagiellonian monarchies of Central Europe during Dürer's time - is also his first name and his patron saint. The painter's father recorded in the family chronicle that he had given his own first name to his famous son. Although it is not known which Saint Adalbert (or Albert) was the patron of Albrecht Dürer the Elder, a goldsmith from Ajtós near Gyula in Hungary, one of them - Saint Adalbert of Prague (ca. 956-997), Bishop of Prague, born Vojtěch Slavníkovec, was particularly venerated in Hungary. Saint Adalbert baptized the first King of Hungary, Stephen I, and is also the patron saint of the Archdiocese of Esztergom, the primatial see of the Roman Catholic Church in Hungary. 

No depiction of Saint Adalbert by Albrecht Dürer is known; however, around 1530, his brother Hans painted the wings of a triptych featuring Saint Stanislaus and Saint Adalbert, the patron saints of Poland, a work I attributed to this artist in 2012 (National Museum in Warsaw, tempera and oil on panel, dimensions of each wing: 155 x 62 cm). It is also worth noting that the woodcut depicting Saint Adalbert, found in Jakub Wujek's Postille Catholiczney część trzecia ..., published in Kraków in 1575 (National Library of Poland, SD XVI.F.23), likely draws inspiration from a lost original by Dürer depicting either Saint Adalbert or Saint Willibald, much like the illustration in the Eichstätt Missal, published in Nuremberg in 1517 (LACMA, inv. M.61.19a-b). This same model was adopted around the same time by Hans Springinklee (British Museum, inv. 1927,0614.94) and subsequently by Georg Erlinger, who transformed the figure of Saint Willibald into that of Saint Erasmus (British Museum, inv. E,7.188). For his part, Stanisław Samostrzelnik drew inspiration from one of these depictions when creating the portrait of Bishop Piotr Tomicki (1464-1535), painted around 1530 (Franciscan Monastery in Kraków).

All these facts allow us to conclude that it is very likely that Dürer stayed in Poland during his years of wandering and that he produced works for Sarmatian clients later in his career. Unfortunately, all of these paintings were destroyed during the country's turbulent history, or sold, like the portraits of a "Venetian" woman from the collection of Witold Klemens Wańkowicz (1888-1948) in Warsaw, now housed in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna (inv. GG 6440). 

To conclude, it is also worth mentioning Dürer's self-portraits in disguise, such as the self-portrait as Christ as the Man of Sorrows (Vir Dolorum), a drawing from 1522, half-naked and holding the instruments of the Passion, such as the whip and fasces (Kunsthalle Bremen, inv. B 36, lost during the Second World War). It was a study for a painting, known from a copy in Weissenstein Castle in Pommersfelden (inv. 248), probably by Hans Hoffmann (ca. 1530-1591/1592), one of the earliest copyists of Dürer. In his best-known self-portrait, at the age of 28, in a fur coat, dated 1500 (Alte Pinakothek in Munich, inv. 537), the artist depicted himself in a pose similar to that used for depictions of Christ. For Dürer, this could be an interpretation of the doctrine of the Imitatio Christi and Renaissance topos of the "divine artist" (divino artista), through which the artist is likened to God by his parallel ability to create at will. The effigy in a fur coat was used in another composition from around 1520: Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery, known from a copy by Georg Vischer from 1637 (Alte Pinakothek in Munich, inv. 1411). The artist also lent his features to Saint Caspar, one of the biblical Magi, in a painting created in 1504, probably for the Saxon Elector Frederick the Wise (1463-1525) for the chapel of Wittenberg Castle (today at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, inv. 1890 n. 1434). 

​Portrait of a man in a yellow jacket by Hans Leonard Schäufelein, ca. 1507, National Museum in Warsaw.

Christus Rex and Maria Regina, reverses of the wings of the Pławno triptych, by Hans von Kulmbach or workshop of Albrecht Dürer, ca. 1514-1518, National Museum in Warsaw.

​Visualization of the Skałka triptych by Hans von Kulmbach, 1511.

​Saint Catherine of Alexandria, from the Skałka triptych by Hans von Kulmbach, 1511, Czartoryski Museum.

​Saint Barbara in Sarmatian costume, from the Skałka triptych by Hans von Kulmbach, 1511, Potocki Palace in Kraków, lost. Virtual reconstruction, © Marcin Latka 

​Portrait of Sophia Jagiellon (1464-1512), Margravine of Brandenburg-Ansbach and Brandenburg-Kulmbach, by Hans von Kulmbach or workshop, ca. 1511, Private collection. 

​Hypothetical reconstruction of the portrait of a lady, perhaps Queen Barbara Zapolya (d. 1515), by Hans von Kulmbach, ca. 1516, lost. © Marcin Latka 

Hypothetical reconstruction of the portrait of a lady, perhaps Szczęsna Morsztynówna, by Hans von Kulmbach, ca. 1516, lost. © Marcin Latka 

​Visualization of the Sandomierz triptych by circle of Hans von Kulmbach, 1520s.

​Saint Stanislaus and Saint Adalbert, patron saints of Poland, wings of a triptych by Hans Dürer, ca. 1530, National Museum in Warsaw. 

​Coronation of the Virgin by Georg Pencz, 1530s, Dominican Monastery in Kraków.

​Caritas Romana by Georg Pencz, 1538, National Museum in Warsaw.

​Lot and his daughters by Georg Pencz, 1544, Wawel Royal Castle.

​Christ crowned with thorns by Georg Pencz, 1544, National Museum in Wrocław.

​Woodcut with Saint Stanislaus by Hans Baldung Grien, ca. 1540, Jagiellonian Library. 

​Woodcut with the portrait of Queen Bona Maria Sforza d'Aragona (1494-1557) by Hans Baldung Grien, ca. 1540, Jagiellonian Library. 

​Woodcut with the portrait of a voivode's daughter named Sophia, perhaps Zofia Tęczyńska (d. 1588), by Hans Baldung Grien, ca. 1540, Jagiellonian Library. 

​Woodcut with the personification of death by Hans Baldung Grien, ca. 1540, Jagiellonian Library.

​Hypothetical reconstruction of the portrait of Queen Bona Maria Sforza d'Aragona (1494-1557) by Hans Baldung Grien, ca. 1540, lost. © Marcin Latka

​Hypothetical reconstruction of the portrait of a voivode's daughter named Sophia, perhaps Zofia Tęczyńska (d. 1588), by Hans Baldung Grien, ca. 1540, lost. © Marcin Latka