George gardener the Elder Portrait of Hans Sachs Gouache... Lot 2007

George gardener the Elder Portrait of Hans Sachs Gouache on thin cardboard, game card printed in woodcut technique on verso, cross 9.. 9,4 x 5,8 cm. Monogrammed upper right: GG (ligatured). Provenance Paulus Praun II (1548-1616), Nuremberg. - Johann Friedrich Frauenholz (1758-1822), art dealer and collector in Nuremberg. - German private property. Literature Christoph Gottlieb von Murr: Beschreibung der vornehmsten Merkwürdigkeiten des H. R. Reichs freyen Stadt Nürnberg ..., Nuremberg 1778, p. 472. - Christoph Gottlieb von Murr: Description du Cabinet de Monsieur Paul de Praun à Nuremberg, Nuremberg 1797, p. 8, no. 56. - Katrin Achilles-Syndram: Die Kunstsammlung des Paulus Praun. The inventories of 1616 and 1719, Nuremberg 1994. - Rainer Stüwe: Dürer in der Kopie. Die Gemälde und Graphiken der Nürnberger Dürer-Kopisten des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts, Textband, Heidelberg 1997, p. 209, no. A 1.c. This miniature portrait of the Nuremberg Meistersinger Hans Sachs is a work from the famous "Praunsche Kabinett" that has been lost since the 19th century. This collection of several thousand pieces was assembled by the Nuremberg merchant Paulus II Praun (1548-1616). In the mid-1590s, Praun had moved part of his collection to Bologna, where he also expanded it considerably until his death in 1616. Immediately after his death, his brother Jacob drew up an inventory of the collection in Italy, which included about 700 items. According to his will, the collection was to be brought to Nuremberg and kept there in the Praun house as inalienable family property. For almost 200 years, this wish was fulfilled until financial difficulties led to the dissolution of the collection around 1800. Some individual pieces were sold directly by the family, then the Nuremberg art dealer Johann Friedrich Frauenholz (1758-1822) and two partners took over the holdings "en bloc" in 1801 and sold them over the following years. Among them was the present portrait, as evidenced by the lacquer seal of Friedrich Frauenholz on each of the four wooden strips of our piece (Fig. 3). In the first inventory of 1616, 28 works by Hans Hoffmann are listed. Among these, one is described as follows: "No. 103: Hanß Sachßen conterfect, auf einem Welschen kartenblat" (Achilles-Syndram, op. cit., p. 119). A hundred years later, in a second inventory from 1719, this item can be identified with number 51: "Nr. 56 Hans Sachsen contrefait in einem kleinen Rämlein mit vergulden leisten." Addition: "von Hanß Hoffmann" (Achilles-Syndram, op. cit., p. 186). Finally, the engraver Friedrich Fleischmann (1791 Nuremberg - 1834 Munich) produced a portrait of Hans Sachs at the beginning of the 19th century, for which the portrait here obviously served as a model (Fig. 1). This time, too, Hans Hoffmann is named as the artist. Finally, the portrait is also attributed to him on an additional sheet, probably from the 19th century, which lies loose on the back of the object: "Volksdichter und Meistersinger HANS SACHS gemalt von H. Hoffmann" (Fig. 2). As certain as the provenance of the miniature portrait is based on the correspondences with the inventories of Praun's collection, the false attribution to Hans Hoffmann, which persisted so stubbornly into the 19th century despite the monogram "GG", is all the more astonishing. The reason probably lies in Hoffmann's greater degree of fame. Both Hoffmann and Gärtner are among the representatives of the so-called "Dürer Renaissance", which led to numerous copies and stylistic adoptions by Nuremberg artists at the end of the 16th century. Unfortunately, it has not yet been possible to compile a numerically significant oeuvre of Georg Gärtner the Elder. There are only a few works that can be attributed to him with certainty or are clearly signed. Others are confused with those of his son of the same name, with whom he is said to have shared the workshop. Complicating the creation of his oeuvre is the fact that both the father and the younger Gärtner often executed copies after Dürer or Pencz, for which there was a lively demand, but which are of little help in developing an individual style. Two paintings of apostles after Georg Pencz, for example, also have the monogram GG and at the same time the Latinized signature "Giorgius Hortolanus". In view of this sparse information, the discovery of this miniature portrait by Georg Gärtner, which is as finely painted as it is amazingly well preserved, is particularly gratifying. The drawing is assumed to date from around 1580/90, was created in Nuremberg and acquired by Paul Praun before he moved to Bologna. The model could have been an engraving by Joost Amman, who portrayed the master singer in the 157