Lot 8: Portrait of Goeddert Hittorp (1490-1573), aged 57, half-length, in a fur-trimmed coat and a hat, holding gloves; and Portrait of Gertrud Hittorp, aged 26, half-length, in a head-dress, holding a flower

Workshop of Barthel Bruyn (Wesel or Cologne 1493-1555 Cologne)
Portrait of Goeddert Hittorp (1490-1573), aged 57, half-length, in a fur-trimmed coat and a hat, holding gloves; and Portrait of Gertrud Hittorp, aged 26, half-length, in a head-dress, holding a flower
the first inscribed and dated 'ANNO DÑI. 1547. AETATIS SVE. 57.' (upper right); the second inscribed and dated 'ANNO DÑI. 1547. AETATIS SVE. 26.' (upper left), both with coats-of-arms
oil on panel, shaped tops
20 3/8 x 14 in. (51.5 x 35.6 cm.)
a pair (2)

Vinot collection, Paris.
Chavaignac collection, Paris.
Anton Philips, by 1928, when recorded as hanging on the staircase at De Laak .
Thence by descent.

From time to time, Christie's may offer a lot which it owns in whole or in part. This is such a lot.
Goeddert Hittorp was a leading academic and civic figure in mid sixteenth century Cologne. He studied in Paris and back in Germany made a name for himself as a respected literary scholar and theologian, culminating in his appointment as director of the University of Cologne in 1540. He was a also a successful book dealer. At the same time, he is recorded as a secretary of the town council in 1533, a full member by 1542 and then, fifteen years later, as Cologne's Bürgermeister.

These portraits served to commemorate his wedding in 1547 to Gertrud von Bergen who was more than thirty years his junior. The carnation she holds, the removal of gloves to reveal their rings and the prominence of the coats-of-arms (probably painted by a different specialist hand), all allude to the pictures' function. Their formal nature is entirely typical of Barthel Bruyn's mature style. After 1539 he was strongly influenced by Hans Holbein and the direct mode of depicting these sitters can be seen in virtually all his other portraits of the 1540s (see, for example, the Portraits of Heinrich and Helena Salburg , from 1549, in the Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne).

The compositions have previously been known by virtue of prints that have been published as copies after lost originals (see H. Westhoff-Krummacher, Barthel Bruyn der Ältere , 1965, pp. 136-7, nos. 56 & 57). The prints correspond very closely to these pictures although there are discernable anomalies, for instance in the carpet patterns, the positioning of the hands and certain nuances of the facial expressions. Given these differences and the overall hardness of the execution it seems unlikely that the these works served as the prime originals and the prototypes for the prints. This view has been confirmed by Dr. Kurt Löcher (to whom we are grateful) who makes the point that it was quite normal for second versions of commissioned portraits to be made in Bruyn's workshop. Bruyn was far and away the most successful portrait painter in 16th century Cologne and by the late 1540s was running a thriving studio practice overseen by his two sons, the eldest of whom inherited the business in 1555.