The tale behind our new acquisition

Albrecht Dürer, The Virgin and Child with a Monkey, c1498, engraving, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, purchased 2013

In my previous post I introduced our recent acquisition, a splendid early impression of Albrecht Dürer’s engraving The Virgin and Child with a Monkey, c1498 (state: Meder a). I now want to explore the remarkable provenance (history) of this object.

After leaving Dürer’s studio, this impression of The Virgin and Child with a Monkey circulated among collectors and the art market for upwards of 300 years before being acquired by the London-based collector the Reverand Clayton Mordaunt Cracherode (1730-99). Cracherode combined private wealth with a discerning eye and established a collection of several parts, notable among which was a large number of fine prints. Our print carries Cracherode’s mark on the verso (back) at lower left:

Only the finest or most significant of Cracherode’s prints were marked with his initials and the print scholar Antony Griffiths has suggested that he reserved his mark ‘as a sign of special approval or attachment.’ As we know that Cracherode only had a small number of northern prints from the period (compared to his extensive holdings of 16th-century Italian prints, for example), we can be confident that our print was highly prized by the famous collector.

Having served as a Trustee of the British Museum since 1784, Cracherode left his several collections to the Museum on his death. But in 1806 it was discovered that over the course of a year or more, the caricaturist and amateur art dealer Robert Dighton (c1752–1814) had stolen a large number of Cracherode’s prints from the Museum. The scandal was soon picked up by the newspapers and the Trustees struck a deal with Dighton to recover as many as possible of the prints in return for not bringing a prosecution against him.

Recent research by An van Camp (Curator of Dutch and Flemish Drawings and Prints at the British Museum) has revealed the lengths Dighton went to in order to obscure the provenance of his stolen prints. The stamps and inscriptions of previous owners were scratched out and bleached as well as being obscured with false marks invented by Dighton. By obliterating the legitimate provenance of these prints (recognisable through the various marks of previous collectors) and falsifying new histories for his ill-gotten wares, Dighton hoped to sell them without raising suspicion.

Our print shows Dighton’s owner’s mark on the recto (front) at lower right:

This stamp is a tell-tale sign of Dighton’s theft. Combined with the trace of Cracherode’s own mark on the verso we can identify our print as one of those stolen from the British Museum by Dighton and not subsequently recovered. (The British Museum no longer pursues the prints that Dighton stole, and the Gallery has acquired good title to this important work.)

Our print no doubt circulated among private collectors in the years after 1806 before appearing in a commercial exhibition in London at P & D Colnaghi & Co Ltd in 1971, marking the 500th anniversary of Dürer’s birth. A private collector purchased the print from that exhibition for £2000.

In July 2012 our print resurfaced during the filming of the popular television programme Antiques Roadshow during its visit to Stowe School in Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom. While the owner realised that her late father had acquired the print at Colnaghi’s in 1971 she was keen to learn more. London-based dealer Philip Mould examined the print and it became one of the highlights of the day’s visit to Stowe. The print features in episode 13 of series 35 of the Antiques Roadshow (Stowe House) which screened in the United Kingdom in January of this year.

In addition to being an important and beautiful work of art, our print has a most extraordinary story to tell. We hope that Aucklanders will enjoy this delightful addition to their collection.

- Mathew Norman, Assistant Curator

Further reading:

• An Van Camp, ‘Robert Dighton and his spurious collectors’ marks on Rembrandt prints in the British Museum, London’, in The Burlington Magazine, 155, 2013, pp88–94.
• Antony Griffiths (ed.), Landmarks in Print Collecting: Connoisseurs and Donors at the British Museum since 1753, The British Museum Press, London, the Parnassus Foundation, Ridgewood, NJ, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas, 1996, pp43–51.

New acquisition

Albrecht Dürer, The Virgin and Child with a Monkey, c1498, engraving, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, purchased 2013

The Gallery recently acquired a superb early impression of Albrecht Dürer’s engraving The Virgin and Child with a Monkey, c.1498. (An early impression is pulled from the copper plate early in its life before the engraved lines deteriorate through repeated printing. This impression is also in the earliest state: Meder a.)

Albrecht Dürer was the leading artistic personality of the Northern Renaissance and his work was highly prized in the succeeding centuries. Dürer dramatically improved the standard of printmaking through the influential work produced at his studio in Nuremberg and his many prints were in wide circulation, making him famous throughout Europe. Importantly, Dürer acted as a conduit for many of the artistic advances of the Italian Renaissance which he encountered in person during his two trips south of the Alps.

The impact of Dürer’s first visit to Italy in 1494-95 is particularly evident in the classicising of the drapery of the Virgin’s costume seen in this composition. The simpler lines of the falling cloth reveal that Dürer had cast off much of the weight of the earlier Gothic tradition. We need only look to an earlier depiction of the same subject by the artist in which the heavy, stylised folds of the cloth are more reminiscent of carved stone or wood than actual fabric.

The close observation of incidental detail is found throughout Dürer’s work, whether it be in his paintings and prints or in the preparatory works, including his drawings and luminous watercolours. A fine example of the latter is the watercolour depicting the Weierhaus (pond or fisherman’s house) seen in the background of this print, and which is now in the British Museum, London.

It is useful to recall that Dürer created the visual effects of the wide range of textures and surfaces found in this print with only the tip of the engraver’s burin. The burin is a metal instrument with a sharp v-shaped tip which the artist uses to engrave the lines of the design into the copper plate. (A very thick ink is then rubbed into these grooves before the surface is wiped clean prior to printing.) In order to differentiate between the surfaces depicted, the artist needed to vary the depth, number and variety of marks he made in the copper. Compare the short and velvet-like fur of the monkey’s nose with the smooth skin of the fleshy Christ-child; while the rough wood of the low and rustic fence is in marked contrast to the softly waved and loosely worn hair of the Virgin.

The monkey (perhaps a Wolf’s mona monkey – Cercopithecus Wolfi) adds an exotic note to this composition. It seems that monkeys were kept as pets in the period and this poor creature may be seen chained for just that reason. However, the animal is also loaded with meaning and Erwin Panofsky pointed to the monkey as a symbol of base, immoral behaviour linked to Eve and the doctrine of Original Sin. Freighted with the weight of human failings, the monkey stands in contrast to the purity of the Virgin.

The Gallery did not previously hold an example of Dürer’s compositions of the Virgin and Child, so this acquisition fills a gap in our representation of the artist’s work. (Indeed, there does not appear to be another impression of this print in any of the other public collections in New Zealand.) For obvious reasons, this particular print was enormously popular in Dürer’s own time and later and a number of copies were produced by printmakers who were keen to cash-in on Dürer’s success.

- Mathew Norman, Assistant Curator

Further reading:
Erwin Panofsky, Albrecht Dürer, two vols, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1945, p67.

Staff spotlight: Mathew Norman

Mathew Norman is like a kid in a candy store. Only instead of sweet treats, the objects of his desire can be found in Auckland Art Gallery’s collection of historic works on paper.

Mathew joined the Gallery in July as assistant curator. It’s not his first time on staff – in 2008 he was awarded a Marylyn Mayo internship and spent nine weeks researching a staggering 1,500 artworks.

Prior to joining the Gallery, Mathew worked in the print collection at the British Museum in London, where he received two prestigious scholarships. He’s also worked at Te Papa, the Ministry for Culture and Heritage and at the National Gallery of Ireland… and in a dairy factory.

Mathew is responsible for the international print collection, supporting Mary Kisler in her role as Senior Curator, Mackelvie Collection, International Art. He also facilitates visits to the Gallery’s print room and supervises students and visitors as they examine the artworks.

One of the biggest drawcards of the role for Mathew was access to the Gallery’s collection. “This is one of the three finest collections in New Zealand from an historical perspective – and we have a superb print collection with real depth, which makes it possible to produce exhibitions and scholarship of merit.”

The Gallery’s collection of more than 15,000 artworks contains a large number of objects by unknown artists. Mathew is undertaking research to help ‘fill in the gaps’, and has already had some success in identifying artists. At the end of October he’ll be presenting a talk about a seventeenth-century oil painting titled Battle Scene, which he believes he’s been able to attribute to a specific artist. “I’m awaiting the opinion of an expert in the Netherlands, but the evidence points to the artist I have identified,” he says.

On top of this, Mathew’s busy planning an exhibition called Travels with Mr Hollar which will open in early 2013. It will be the Gallery’s first large-scale exhibition of work by 17th century Bohemian artist Wenceslaus Hollar.

So how do curators put together an exhibition? “I get the impression people think we just dream up a list of objects and throw them up on the wall or onto plinths – of course it’s not that easy. There’s a huge amount of teasing out of the relationships between the works that has to be done. There has to be a rationale and it has to be obvious to visitors.”

Mathew says the best part of his job is the hands-on access to artworks. “I’m not a theoretician. I’m about the objects themselves,” he says. “I consider myself very lucky to be able to work with objects of real international significance.”

When he’s not poring over prints, Mathew enjoys cheese and baroque music, and is currently dreaming of setting up his own vegetable garden.