Hans Rottenhammer, ‘Virgin and Child’, oil-paint on amethyst, German, 1591-1606; the frame tortoiseshell and gold (piqué), French, 1700-1720.

Oil painting on amethyst in a tortoiseshell frame inlaid with gold (piqué). The painting German, late 16th century, Hans Rottenhammer; the frame French, early 18th century.

Griffin Bequest

No early provenance for the painting. In the 20th century it was owned by Mrs Griffin of Leicester (d. 1937) and by Miss Griffin of Minchinhampton (d. 1960). Miss Griffin bequeathed the painting and frame to the Museum.

This painting was believed to be by an anonymous Italian artist when it entered the Museum. However, it was reattributed to the German painter Hans Rottenhammer by Helga Wagner in 1970 on the basis of an identical composition by him, on copper, in the Hermitage, St Petersburg, and another, engraved in 1781, with a slight variation in the position of the child and the addition of thel figure of Joseph by Baptiste Michel (British Museum, London, 1917,1208.1015). Another version of Rottenhammer's composition was exhibited at Jean-Luc Baroni's gallery, London (18th-31st January 2008). This use of oil paint on stone is unusual in Rottenhammer's work: he is an artist best known for his numerous mythological and small-scale religious scenes painted on copper.
Paintings on stone were fashionable in the late 16th and 17th centuries, particularly in Italy. The reattribution of this work to a German artist shows how non-Italian artists successfully learned and practiced fashionable painting techniques associated with Italy. While in Italy, Rottenhammer absorbed the work Italian artists, and this work is reminiscent of compositions by Correggio's Madonna of the Basket (1524; The National Gallery, London). This suggests that Rottenhammer probably carried out this small painting of the Virgin and Child between 1591 and 1606, during his travels in Italy. The picture is a good example of the way in which the natural colour of the stone has been incorporated into the composition: Rottenhammer uses the purple of the amethyst and the veining of the stone to good effect in the depiction of the Virgin's robe.

Hans Rottenhammer (1564/65-1625) was born in Munich and became the apprentice of the court painter Hans Donauer (c. 1540-1596). In the early 1590s, Rottenhammer travelled to Italy, and is documented in Venice and Rome between 1591 and 1595. The studio he established in Venice attracted collectors and numerous important commissions. In 1606 he returned to Augsburg, where he stayed until his death. His sons Hans Rottenhammer II (1622-1668) and Domenikus Rottenhammer (1622-?) were also painters but almost none of their work has survived.
This small oil painted on an amethyst plaque depicts the Virgin and Child with the Infant Saint John the Baptist. It is a rare example of Rottenhammer's use of stone as a support, and was probably executed while during his time in Italy, either in Venice or Rome, between 1591 and 1606.

M.179-1960