The Monogrammist H.W., possibly Hans Wolf (active ?Bamberg and Nuremburg c. 1511-1539)

First published in 1904 as an addition to the corpus of Hans Wertinger, it was not until 1942 that Karl Feuchtmayr (op. cit.) recognised that this portrait’s date of 1536 places it outside that artist’s lifetime (c. 1465/70- 1533). In 1967, Dr. Kurt Löcher grouped it with several other pictures bearing the analogous initials H.W., creating a corpus for an anonymous Monogrammist H.W. active in Nuremburg (op. cit.). The corpus included a betrothal portrait pair dated 1534 (Uppsala, attributed to the master by Ernst Buchner) and a child portrait dated 1539. In 1997, Löcher proposed that the Monogrammist H.W. might be a Bamberg painter called Hans Wolf (op. cit.). We are grateful to Dr. Löcher for his assistance in cataloguing this lot.