Catalogue of German Renaissance Paintings in the KHM

The Kunsthistorisches Museum submits application for funding to compile and publish a scholarly catalogue of its collection of German paintings of the 15th and 16th century. The Kunsthistorisches Museum is one of the great museums of Fine Art and houses the former imperial collections of the Habsburg dynasty. The Gemäldegalerie (department of Old Master paintings) forms one of nine collections of the Kunsthistorisches Museum and collects European Old Master paintings from 15th to 18th century. The collection of German paintings 1500 - 1540 includes around 115 works originating from the important centers of German Renaissance painting like Nuremberg, Augsburg, Wittenberg and Regensburg with eight paintings by Albrecht Dürer, 23 works by Lucas Cranach the Elder, eight paintings by Albrecht Altdorfer and seven paintings by Hans Holbein the Younger. For the first time, one of the museum`s core collections is to be catalogued in its entirety and addressed according to current scholarly and scientific criteria. Until now there has been no detailed, scholarly catalogue on these major collection sector that would even approach, let alone attain contemporary standards. There are of course former catalogues raisonnés of the gallery like Eduard v. Engerth`s three volumes Beschreibendes Verzeichnis (1881-1886) dealing also with the German collection or the comprehensive Katalog der Gemäldegalerie, 2nd part, Netherlandish, German and French painting (1958, 2nd ed. 1963). Parts of the collection have been published more recently in connection with catalogues of special exhibitions, like Albrecht Dürer im Kunsthistorischen Museum by Karl Schütz, 1994. The project will combine scholarly research and scientific investigation of painting technique, underdrawings with Infrared Reflectography and former restorations as a collaboration of art historians, conservators and scientists. The scope of research, the kind of investigations to be carried out and the scientific and academic standards are oriented on recent catalogues of comparable, international painting collections. The catalogue entries will therefore not only present a critical check of the relevant status of research and endeavor as precisely as possible to answer questions of attribution, dating and iconography; they will also involve research on the state of preservation, the technical structure of the paintings and new results on questions of provenance. Since the collection of German Renaissance Painting of the KHM is among the most important of its kind, the projected documentation of scientific investigations can as a whole provide a major contribution to improving the present state of knowledge of German painting generally. Therefore the published results of the research will also be relevant for assessing more general hypotheses on the history of painting techniques.

German Paintings dating from 1500 to 1540 form an important part of the collection of the Gemäldegalerie of the Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna. The greater part of approximately 140 pictures comes from the centres of early German painting like Nuremberg, Augsburg, Wittenberg and Regensburg. The most prominent artists are Albrecht Dürer with eight pictures, Lucas Cranach with 23, Albrecht Altdorfer with eight, Hans Holbein the Younger with seven pictures. The greater part of these works can be traced back to the former Imperial collection. The masterpieces by Dürer and Cranach belong to the oldest part of the gallery collected by Emperor Rudolph II. around 1600. The collection of German paintings grew again in the beginning of the 20th century when special emphasis was laid on collecting Early Netherlandish and German painting in the Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna. With our project this important part of the picture gallery was researched completely for the first time corresponding to contemporary scientific standards. Especially significant was the cooperation between art historians, conservators and scientists. Research on the paintings was done in the restoration department of the Kunsthistorisches Museum, including technical documentation of support and paint layers. Underdrawings had been made visible and documented with Infraredreflectography (IRR), panels were dated by dendrochronology. Concerning the great number of paintings and the diversity of questions it was not possible to complete the research during the project period as planned. While technical research on the paintings is almost finished, art historical research investigations could not yet been done in several cases. We decided to divide the material in two parts, part one including approximately 70 paintings will be finished first by delivering a catalogue manuscript fit for print. To finish research of the second part will be only possible with a following project.