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Crucifixion

Hans Baldung (Grien) (German, 1484 or 1485–1545)
about 1511–12

Medium/Technique Chiaroscuro woodcut with gray tone block
Dimensions Image: 37.3 x 26.1 cm (14 11/16 x 10 1/4 in.)
Credit Line William Francis Warden Fund
Accession Number48.1
NOT ON VIEW
ClassificationsPrints

Catalogue Raisonné Bartsch (relief) 057 (as Dürer); Curjel 036; Geisberg 75; Hollstein 11; Mende 37; Yale 24
Signed Signed in block, lower right: HBG [monogram]
Marks No watermark; verso, collector's stamp in black [Adalbert Freiherr von Lanna; Lugt 2773] with 4088 in graphite just above it; collector's stamp in brown [R. Ritter von Gutmann; Lugt 2770]; MFA stamp, with old accession number in graphite: 36504; in graphite: 788; 196
ProvenanceAdalbert, Freiherr von Lanna (b. 1836 - d. 1909; Lugt 2773) Prague; May 11-22, 1909, Adalbert, Freiherr von Lanna sale, H. G. Gutekunst, Stuttgart, lot 420, sold for M 2900; 1938, Rudolf von Gutmann (b. 1880 - d. 1966; Lugt 2770) Vienna; 1938, seized by Nazi authorities and taken to the Neue Burg and then to Alt Aussee, Austria [see note 1]; August, 1947, returned to Rudolf von Gutmann, Victoria, Canada [see note 2]; 1947, sold by Gutmann to William H. Schab, New York [see note 3]; sold by Schab to the MFA for $4500. (Accession Date: January 8, 1948)

NOTES:
[1] Rudolf von Gutmann of Vienna was a Jewish industrialist who built up a renowned art collection in the early 20th century. On the night of the Anschluss, or the incorporation of Austria into Nazi Germany (March 13, 1938), Gutmann and his wife Marianne fled to Czechoslovakia, eventually making their way to Canada. The art collection was left behind, confiscated by Nazi authorities, and stored in the Neue Burg Central Depot, Vienna. This print is recorded in the 1939 inventory of the confiscated Gutmann collection, no. 762. The collection was removed at a later date to the abandoned salt mines at Alt Aussee.

[2] Through the Austrian dealer Christian Nebehay, Gutmann was able to recover parts of his collection after World War II. A list of the recovered works of art from his graphics collection confirms that this print was given over to Nebehay in the summer of 1947, for return to Gutmann in Canada (Rudolf Gutmann, Restitutionsmaterialen, BDA [Bundesdenkmalamt, Vienna]; reference no. 4716/47). Gutmann applied to export these recovered works in July and the Austrian federal monuments office authorized export on August 11, 1947 (Rudolf Gutmann, Restitutionsmaterialen, BDA, reference no. 4694/47).

[3] According to information recorded by MFA curator Henry Rossiter (December 11, 1947), "With the assistance of the Canadian Government [Gutmann] returned to Vienna this summer and recovered what he could of his collection… . About a month ago, he asked Mr. W. H. Schab, the New York dealer, to undertake the sale of those he was able to recover." Schab offered these prints to the MFA.

For more information on Gutmann and a transcription of the 1939 inventory, see Sophie Lillie, Was einmal war: Handbuch der enteigneten Kunstsammlungen Wiens (Vienna, 2003), pp. 438-465.