Art Appreciation Lecture Series 2015 Meet the Masters: Highlights from the Scottish National Gallery Adam Elsheimer, The Stoning of Saint Stephen David R. Marshall 11 / 12 March 2015 Lecture summary: Adam Elsheimer (1578-1610) is not a household name but deserves to be. A near contemporary of Caravaggio, he was almost as influential; painters like Rubens were blown away by his paintings. A specialist in small paintings on copper, which are quite extraordinary in their brilliance, with his German background and Venetian experiences be brought a whole new approach to painting in the artistic ferment of Rome in the first decade of the seventeenth century. This lecture begins by asking how we might respond to this work, before moving on to unpack the sources and distinctive nature of his approach and interpretation of subject matter. It concludes by discussing his distinctive contribution to the transformation of landscape painting in these years, without which the art of Claude Lorrain would not have been possible. Slide list: 1. Adam Elsheimer, The Stoning of St Stephen, about 1603-04. Oil on silvered copper, 34.7 x 28.6 cm. Edinburgh, National Gallery of Scotland. 2. Elsheimer, Apollo and Coronis, c.1607. Copper, 17.4 x 21.6 cm. Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool. 3. Copy by Jobst Harrach of Albrecht Dürer, Assumption of the Virgin (The Heller Altarpiece).Frankfurt, Historisches Museum. Upper scenes in the side wings by Matthias Grünewald. 4. Adam Elsheimer, The Witch. Copper, 13.5 x 9.8 cm. Hampton Court. 5. Adam Elsheimer, Saint Elizabeth Tending the Sick, before 1597. Copper, 27.6 x 20 cm. London, The Wellcome Institute. 6. Adam Elsheimer. House Altar with Six Scenes of the Life of the Virgin. Berlin, Staatliche Museen, Central panel, Assumption of the Virgin. Oil on copper, 26 x 21 cm. Upper right scene, Visitation. Oil on copper, 12 x 10 cm. Lower right scene, Adoration of the Magi. Oil on copper, 12 x 10 cm. 7. Gottfried Wals, Landscape with a Road. Copper, 23.5 cm diameter. Fort Worth, Kimbell Art Museum. 8. Johann Rottenhammer (1564–1625), Minerva and the Muses on Mount Helicon, c.1603. Oil on copper. Nuremberg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum. 9. Jan Brueghel the Elder (1568–1625) and Hans Rottenhammer (1564–1625), The Flight into Egypt. Oil on copper 58 × 78. 10. Adam Elsheimer, The Baptism of Christ, 1599. Oil on copper, 28.1 x 21 cm. London, National Gallery. 11. Albrecht Altdorfer, The Nativity of the Virgin, 1525. Munich, Alte Pinakothek. 12. Albrecht Altdorfer, Danubian Landscape, 1520-25. Parchment on wood, 30 x 22 cm. Munich, Alte Pinakothek. 13. Adam Elsheimer, Saint Lawrence Prepared for Martyrdom, c. 1603-04. Copper 26.7 x 20.6 cm. London, National Gallery. Proudly sponsored by 14. Adam Elsheimer, Saint Paul on Malta, 1598-99?. Copper, 17 x 21.3 cm. London, National Gallery. 15. The ‘White Marsyas’. Roman statue of Marsyas, from a group of Marysas about to be flayed by a Scythian. Florence, Uffizi. 16. Adam Elsheimer, or after Elsheimer, or variation of Elsheimer, Stoning of Saint Stephen. Oil on copper, 35 x 29.1 cm. Private collection, in 1996 on loan to the Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne. 17. Adam Elsheimer (attributed) and Paul Bril, Mercury and Herse, c. 1605. Copper, 26.8 x 38.9 cm. Chatsworth, Devonshire Collection 18. Wenceslaus Hollar (1607–77), Mercury and Herse, 1640-60. Etching 85 x 102 mm. Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum. 19. Joachim Patinir, Martyrdom of Saint Catherine, c. 1515. Oil on panel, 27.1 x 44.1 cm. Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum. 20. Paul Bril, Fantastic Landscape, 1598. Oil on copper, 21.3 x 29.2 cm. National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh 21. Adam Elsheimer, Aurora, 1606. Copper, 17 x 22.5 cm. Brunswick, Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum. 22. Adam Elsheimer, Tobias and the Angel (‘the small Tobias’), 1606. Copper, 12.4 x 19.2 cm. Frankfurt, Historisches Museum. 23. Adam Elsheimer, The Flight into Egypt, 1609. Copper, 31 x 41 cm. Munich, Alte Pinakothek. References: The places to see Elshemer are National Gallery, London; Alte Pinaothek, Munich; Städel Institut, Frankfurt. The National Gallery of Scotland has another important Elsheimer, Il Contento, not discussed in the lecture. The most useful book is the catalogue of the exhibition in 2006, which is still available from the National Gallery of Scotland and includes most of the important paintings with god illustrations: Rüdiger Klessmann, Adam Elsheimer 1578-1610. Exh. Cat. National Gallery of Scotland, Dulwich Picture Gallery, Städelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt and Paul Holberton Publishing London, 2006. The most accessible catalogue raisonné is by Keith Andrews (former curator at the National Gallery of Scotland, who acquired the Stoning of St Stephen): Keith Andrews, Adam Elsheimer. Paintings-Drawings-Prints, Oxford: Phaidon, 1977. Mostly in German are essays in Andreas Thielemann and Stefan Gronert (eds.) Adam Elsheimer in Rom: Werk - Kontext - Wirkung (Romische Studien Der Bibliotheca Hertziana, Band 23: Rom Und Der Norden Wege Und Formen Des Kunstlerischen Austauschs, Band 1), 2008. On the copy or version of the Stoning there is a pamphlet published on the occasion when the two were exhibited together in Edinburgh 9 May–26 June 1966. There was an earlier monographic exhibition in Frankfurt: Städelschs Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt, Adam Elsheimer: Werk, künstlerisch Herkunft uns Nachfolge, Frankfurt, 1966-67. The Städel paintings are in Christian Lenz, Adam Elsheimer: Die Gemälde im Städel, Frankfurt, 1977. On the Flight into Egypt, see Deborah Howard, ‘Elsheimer’s Flight into Egypt and the Night Sky in the Renaissance’, Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, 55, 1992, p. 212-24 and Anna Ottani Cavina, ‘On the Theme of Landscape II’, Burlington Magazine, 118, 1976, pp. 139–44. For access to all past lecture notes visit: http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/members/current-members/member-events/meet-the-masters/ .