Aschaffenburg Dagger Madonna
The Aschaffenburg Dagger Madonna is a work by the German painter Hans Baldung from the 16th century. The image originally shows a stabbing Lucretia , but was venerated as a Madonna in the collegiate church of Aschaffenburg for around 150 years .
Work description
The depiction is a typical Lucretia as a three-quarter figure typical of the time , who, with her breast bare, applies the dagger to the death blow. Clothing, jewelry, landscape and clouds are kept in the typical language of colors and shapes of the German Renaissance . The rugged landscape and the rugged clouds underline the drama of the scene. The chest area shows numerous plastering and was probably painted over with a veil or something similar when the picture was attached in the collegiate church. The face, which is described as doll-like , is heavily painted over and lacks the otherwise pronounced angularity of the usual Baldung faces. The clothing and landscape are largely preserved in their original form. The image size is approx. 35 × 52 cm. The painting surface is parqueted poplar wood . The tiling was probably not done until the early 18th century.
Provenance report
The painting probably came from the possession of Cardinal Albrecht von Brandenburg or his immediate predecessor or successor. The painting came with numerous other works in Kurbrandenburg possession in the course of the Reformation in the Aschaffenburg Kunstkammer and was loaned from there, in connection with several other similar loans, during the renovation of Kurmainzer churches, to the Aschaffenburg collegiate church around 1720. Presumably it was assumed that the picture, according to its provenance, had once been in the cathedral in Halle and therefore assigned to the church treasures. In the collegiate church inventory from around 1735 it is mentioned as a Madonna with the dagger on the left side altar, a later inventory lists the dagger Madonna "with an innocent look, as she bleeds from the heart" in the aisle. Shortly before 1870 the painting was returned to the Kunstkammer . Since then it has been in the depot of the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen and can occasionally be seen at exhibitions.
literature
- Catalog of the State Painting Collection Aschaffenburg, edited by the management of the Bavarian State Painting Collections, Munich 1933