German Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1350–1600

Abstract

This substantial volume is the most comprehensive publication on early German paintings in a North American collection.The paintings documented in German Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1350-1600 originate in the German-speaking lands, including Austria and Switzerland, primarily during the rich period around the first half of the sixteenth century.Works by German painters were highly regarded and vigorously collected by the most discerning art patrons in Renaissance Europe.However, as recently as the midtwentieth century, northern art of this era was mostly neglected by collectors and influential scholars, such as E. R. Curtius, who denied the existence of a renaissance in Britain, France, Germany, or elsewhere in northern Europe.Although the achievements of German printmakers and sculptors such as Tilman Riemenschneider are better known, German painting has been especially under-represented in collections outside of Europe, compared with Italian painting and even the work of early Netherlandish painters.The collection of German paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York is the largest and most prestigious in North America.Introductory remarks by Maryan W. Ainsworth situate this collection within the history of American art connoisseurship.Strong choices made by astute curators and collectors from the early days of the museum up to now account for the presence of superb paintings by celebrated masters such as Lucas Cranach the Elder, which have since increased substantially in value.Despite the absence of works by fifteenth-century Cologne painters like Stephan Lochner or independent landscapes associated with the so-called Danube School of painters such as Albrecht Altdorfer, this collection houses works by renowned German painters, including Albrecht Dürer, Hans Holbein the Younger, Hans Baldung (Grien), and the most recent acquisition, a monumental panel from an altarpiece painted by Dürer's pupil, Hans Schäufelein, showing the Dormition of the Virgin on one side and Christ Carrying the Cross on the reverse (cat.

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