FLEMISH, 16TH CENTURY

In letters conserved in Paul Doll’s archives, the great Riemenschneider scholar, Justus Bier first discusses this work in 1933, when he was still based in Hannover, and notes that the present lot is almost identical to Tilman Riemenschneider’s Lamentation, dated to before 1508, and now at Würzburg University, in the Martin von Wagner Museum (see also J. Bier, Tilman Riemenschneider: His Life and Work, Lexington, Kentucky, 1982, plate. 36, p. 104). Bier also notes the only other known replica of the Würzburg Lamentation is a very poor quality example in the Römer Museum, Hildesheim. After further study, Bier, in 1936 attributed the present lot to Riemenschneider’s son, Bartholomaeus Riemenschneider, based on the present lots origins (reputedly the Innsbruck area), the fact that it is beech rather than the usual linden of the Riemenschneider workshop, and the incredibly close compositional connection to Riemenschneider’s original.