Lot 232: [ GERMAN MEDALS ]

GEORG SCHWEIGGER (1613-1680) Portrait of an Unknown Man, after a model attributed to the circle of Hans Schwarz, honestone model, bust in very high relief facing three-quarters right, wearing hat with ties under the brim, gown and undergarment with collar tied at the neck, 66.5mm (Habich p. 47, fig. 59, this piece), the reverse with two pasted collector's reference numbers ('G. W. 21' and '1252') and traces of the artist's name inscribed into the stone, also with old file marks and a test notch at edge, the portrait in extremely fine condition, unique

Provenance: Baron Gustave de Rothschild (1829-1911); Alain Moatti, Paris; The Estate of John R. Gaines, Morton & Eden, 8 December 2005, lot 43. Georg Schweigger of Nuremberg was a virtuoso Dürer revivalist working in Nuremberg in the 17th Century. One of his most famous stone reliefs is The Naming of John the Baptist which copies Dürer's woodcut of The Death of the Virgin and was for many years displayed in the British Museum as an outstanding work by Dürer. The present piece copies a wooden model of an unknown man which Habich attributed to the circle of Hans Schwarz. The wooden model is inscribed in ink on its reverse Jacob W.... etat ao 26 - 1524 and was formerly in the collection of the Prince of Liechtenstein (Habich 288).