Pencz watercolor

GEORG PENCZ                                Nuremberg 1500 – 1550 Leipzig or Wroclaw

Portrait of Pisanello.

Drawing with watercolor. In fine, fresh condition, mounted on a larger sheet. We are grateful to Stijn Alsteens, Director of the Fondation Custodia, Paris who has kindly informed us that the attribution of our drawing has been confirmed. The Fondation Custodia recently acquired two other drawings from the same group, Portrait of Isabella Michiel Sesso, after a medal by Giovanni Maria Pomedelli (inventory number 2025-T.26) and Portrait of ‘Maddalena Mantuana’, after an anonymous medal (inventory number 2025-T.27).

Our drawing relates directly to a medal produced by Pisanello and his studio. The Portrait of Pisanello, comes directly from the recto of a medal, earlier attributed to Marescotti, and now given to Pisanello himself or his shop. The two other drawings by Pencz in the collection of the Fondation Custodia are also related to medals.

Active as painter, draftsman and engraver in Germany and Italy, Pencz entered Albrecht Dürer’s studio in 1523 and soon after went to northern Italy and almost surely Venice before returning to Germany around 1529. Pencz executed a considerable number of  pictorial cycles in Nuremberg, and Krakow, and, as well, made a number of portraits.

The second trip to Italy between 1540 and 1541 brought Pencz again into fruitful contact with Italian art, and in particular Giulio Romano. It was at this time that he engraved his monumental engraving of the Capture of Carthage; it may well be that our drawing was executed at this time.

The medallic format of our drawing pays tribute to the commemorative medal as an art form. Less than a century old when Pencz designed his medals, the medal had become a form which satisfied a passion for portraiture. The intimacy and directness of the commemorative medal captured the imagination of artists and their clients with notable rapidity, and also created a new passion for collectors.

It is notable that Pencz chose Pisanello and his medals as subject for our portrait. It is tempting to suggest that these portrait drawings may have formed a part of a larger series. While Pencz clearly used the medallic portraits as models, he enhanced each portrait with delicate color details transforming the plastic medal format into a painterly image.

Sheet:   214 x 154 mm    8 7/16 x 6 1/16 inches

1. Alan N. Stone, in The Medal, 25, 1994, p.3-5;  Cordellier and Martini, Pisanello, exhibition catalogue, Musée du Louvre, 1996,  cat. no 1; Syson, Pisanello, 1994, exhibition catalogue, The National Gallery, London, p. 51. p.53, note 43, p.481-482 n^o 84.

2. The Portrait of Maddalena of Mantua is related to a medal of the School of Antico, Hill, Corpus 1411, 597-99, and The Portrait of Isabella Michiel Sesso is related to a medal by Giovanni Maria Pomedelli, Hill 597.