Lot 16: Lambert Sustris (Amsterdam c. 1510/15-after 1560 Venice)

Lambert Sustris (Amsterdam c. 1510/15-after 1560 Venice)
Judith with the Head of Holofernes
oil on canvas
48 5/8 x 40¼ in. (123.5 x 102.3 cm.)

Österbybruk, Gyllene Tider Österbysamlingen, August 1981, no. 7, as Titian.
London, Kenwood House, Clerics and Connoisseurs: An Irish Collection through three Centuries, 19 October 2001-21 January 2002, no. 52 (entry by N. Turner).

'Catalogue of the paintings in the galleries at Österby', no. 30, as Titian.
A. Laing and A. Cobbe, The Cobbe Collection of Paintings, [London], 1992, pp. 2 and 12-3.
V. Mancini, Lambert Sustris a Padova: La Villa Bigolin a Selvazzano, Selvazzano, 1993, pp. 103 and 144, note 26, fig. 88.

(Possibly) Anton Fugger I 'von der Lilie' (1493-1560), Augsburg, and by descent until 1650.
(Possibly) acquired in Germany by Anthony Grill or Vollrath Tamm, parents respectively of Claes Grill and his wife Anna Johanna, who acquired Österby, in Sweden, in 1750, and by inheritance to their son-in-law,
Hendrik Wilhelm Peill (d. 1797), Österby, Sweden, recorded in his posthumous inventory as 'Italian, Judith with the head of Holofernes', and by inheritance to his widow,
Anna Johanna, née Tamm, by whom sold after Peill's death, with Österby, to her cousin, Anna Johanna Grill, and subsequently by descent through her daughter Anna Margaret, wife of Per Adolf Tamm, at Österby, where recorded in the inventory of 1841, no. 30, as by Titian, to Miss Tamm; Sotheby's, London, 11 December 1985, lot 7, as Lambert Sustris, where acquired by the present owner.

This is, as was first recognised in 1985, a notable work by Sustris of the period around 1550, when he was based in Bavaria. Born and trained in Amsterdam, Sustris was drawn to Rome, and by about 1535 had reached Venice, where he was evidently associated with Titian's workshop. He was in Padua by 1543, but travelled to Bavaria, at the same time as Titian, in 1548 and worked there until at least 1553, before returning to Venice. As Nicholas Turner wrote in 2001: 'The refined chromatic range of the ... picture--complete with the silver-toned highlights--is entirely characteristic of Sustris and most closely resembles the palette of his Amsterdam Venus ... Not only are the two pictures close in colouring, style and date, they also share the same model and many of the same stage props'. Both depend on Titian, the Venus on the Venus of Urbino, and, albeit less directly, the Judith on a composition represented by a later canvas at Detroit, which in turn relates to a Salome of which the prime version was perhaps a lost canvas known from a copy by Teniers. Sustris's Noli Me Tangere at Lille, which was first linked with the Amsterdam picture by Alessandro Ballarin in 1968, is known to have been painted for the banker Anton Fugger I (1493-1560), and this led Mancini to suggest that the latter also owned the Judith: the Fugger collection was dispersed in 1650, and the Judith is traditionally thought to have been taken to Sweden in that year.