Lot 5: Bartholomäus Bruyn the elder , Wesel or Cologne 1493 - 1555 Cologne A DIPTYCH: THE NATIVITY WITH TWO MEMBERS OF THE MANDERSCHEID-BLANKENHEIM FAMILY; THE ADORATION OF THE KINGS both oil on oak panel

both oil on oak panel Quantity: 2

measurements note each: 48.3 by 34 cm.; 19 by 13 3/8 in.

Cologne, Josef-Haubrich-Kunsthalle, Die heiligen drei Könige-Darstellung und Verehrung, 1982-83, p. 192, no. 70.

H.J. Tümmers, "Zwei unbekannte Tafelbilder von Bartholomäus Bruyn dem Älteren", in Wallraf-Richartz-Jahrbuch, 1983, pp. 115-122, reproduced figs. 1 & 2.

Presumably commissioned by or acquired from the artist by a member of the Mandersheid-Blankenheim family;
In the possession of the Broelmann family (recorded in Cologne since the end of the fifteenth century) until 1978;
Jan de Boever, Ghent;
Anonymous sale ('Property from a Private Collection'), London, Sotheby's, 5 July 1984, lot 252, where bought by the present owner.

PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION
The coat-of-arms on the painting of the Nativity is that of the Counts of Manderscheid-Blankenheim, an important family from the Eiffel area of Germany. A Gräfin Elisabeth von Manderscheid was Abbess of the nunnery of Saint Cecilia in Cologne, which establishes the family's connections with the city, but the donor and donatrix of the present diptych have yet to be identified.

Barthel Bruyn was probably a pupil of Jan Joest van Calcar, a relative from whom he was to receive a bequest. These panels are early works, dating from the first years of his career in Cologne, between 1512 and 1515, and reflect the influence of Jan Joest. They belong to a group of small panels that he painted in this period, all of similar size and each bearing a small shield, on some of which are painted coats-of-arms. It would appear that many of these panels at least were not painted to order, but were left with the shield blank, to be filled in with the purchaser's coat-of-arms, and some remained blank. It is thus possible that the donor figures too were added to the completed paintings, including the present ones. Seven similarly-sized panels, including the present pair, illustrate scenes from the Life of Christ.υ1 Other panels of the same size and period illustrate scenes from the lives of the Saints. The style of these works is remarkably consistent, with a very bright colour scheme and very similar facial types - compare, for example, the Virgin in the present Nativity, with her depiction in the Visitation in Bonn.υ2

1. See H.J. Tümmers, Die Altarbilder des älteren Bartholomäus Bruyn, Cologne 1964, pp. 50-2, cat. nos. A8, A12, A13 and A14, reproduced pp. 150-2.
2. Wiesbaden, Städtisches Museum, inv. 9; see Tümmers, op. cit., 1964, pp. 51-52, no. A12, reproduced p. 151.