Blumka gallery catalog proof a v8 web proof

A NEWLY DISCOVERED WORK

BY JÖRG LEDERER

ST. SEBASTIAN

Jörg Lederer (Füssen? c. 1470 – 1550 Kaufbeuren) South Germany, Allgäu, c. 1515-20 Limewood with original polychromy and gilding 46 x 27

7/8

x9

3/8

inches (117 x 71 x 24 cm)

Provenance: Austrian noble collection

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There are not many times when an art dealer has the honor to work with such a great object

Forward and Acknowledgements For the second TEFAF New York we are ecstatic to put forth most certainly the most important late Medieval sculpture we have ever had. Not only is our Saint Sebastian by Jörg Lederer a dashing, handsomely romantic figure, but his hagiography proves him to be one of the more interesting saints.

Lederer’s attention to detail and esthetics, along with all the glorious original paint is a tours de force in wood carving of the period.

Jörg Lederer was one of the greats along with names such as Tilman Riemenschneider or Veit Stoss.

However, Lederer’s workshop output was not as prolific as these masters, making this discovery and identification even more exciting.

With outstanding conservation work, this magnificent work was brought back to almost its original splendor. With this restoration, we can take you back to the time of inception and the true inspiration of the artist’s eye.

Our further thanks go to: Timothy B. Husband, Curator Emeritus, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters, for his scholarly interpretation and contribution to this production; Florian Eitle- Böhler, Julius Böhler, Starnberg and Hofgalerie Ulrich Hofstätter, Vienna whose partnership helped secure the purchase of this incredible sculpture; Meghan Combs for producing a gripping rendition of St. Sebastian’s life and martyrdom; and Maggie Nimkin for her tremendous work capturing our piece’s magnificence in photographs.

In closing, there are not many times when an art dealer has the honor to work with such a great object.

The journey and adventure that brought us from discovery to the point of presentation was one of great joy and positive collaborations. I hope your reactions will be equally as powerful.

Anthony Blumka

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The Story of St. Sebastian The St. Seba stian stor y of Catholic and Orthodox tradition dates back to the late 3rd centur y B.C.E., according to St. Ambrose of Milan, who spoke of his mart yrdom during his sermon on Psalm 118 in the 4th centur y. Ambrose’s attestation wa s then reproduced in L egenda Aurea in the 14th centur y and in Acta Sanctorum in the 18th centur y.

By St. Ambrose’s account, Seba stian wa s born in Narbonne, Gaul in approximately 256 B.C.E. and studied in Milan. In the year 283, he joined the Roman army under the lead of Emperor Carinus. During his years with the army he proved himself worthy and brave, and wa s appointed captain

of the Praetorian Guard under the rule of Diocletian and Ma ximian. The t wo emperors were unaware, however, that one of their favored captains wa s a Christian.

Throughout his time in the army, Seba stian converted numerous guards and prisoners to Christianit y.

A notable conversion wa s that of Zoe, wife of Roman official Nicostratus. For years she wa s unable to speak, but when Seba stian approached her Zoe made her desire to convert to Christianit y know n and her speech returned to her.1

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Brewer, Ebenezer Cobha m, “A Dictiona r y of M i racle s: Imit ative, Rea li stic, a nd Dogmatic (Chatto a nd Windu s, 19 01),” pg. 11.

Seba stian’s time a s Roman guard and Christian could not la st. In 286 B.C.E. Seba stian’s secret wa s revealed. Outraged by the betrayal, Emperor Diocletian exclaimed, “I have always loved thee well, and have made thee ma ster of my palace; how then ha st thou been christian [sic] privily against my health, and in despite of our gods?” 2 Seba stian responded, “A lways I have worshipped Jesu Christ for thy health and for the state of Rome, and I think for to pray and demand help of the idols of stone is a great folly.” 3 At this, Diocletian became livid. He ordered Seba stian to be taken to a field and tied to a stake, where archers pummeled his body with arrows: “And the archers shot at him till he wa s a s full of arrows a s an urchin is full of prick s, and thus left him there for dead.”4

Angr y, Diocletian imprisoned Seba stian in his ow n palace and had him beaten to death by stone clubs. He died in 287 B.C.E. They then threw his body in a sewer so that his Christian friends could not bur y him properly. Unbeknow nst to Diocletian, his spirit appeared to his friends and told them where to find his body. They took his body, which had not been fouled by the sewer, and buried him in the catacombs at the entrance of Cali xtus, where the Ba silica of St. Seba stian now stands. 7

Miraculously, Seba stian did not die. The widow of one of Seba stian’s converts, Irene of Rome, rescued him and nursed him back to health. W hen he wa s whole again, he vowed to confront Diocletian on his treatment of Christians. Irene and his friends begged him not to go, but he refused to listen and stood on steps the Emperor would pa ss. A s Diocletian walked by, Seba stian berated him profusely.

Surprised, Diocletian a sked, “Art thou not Seba stian whom we commanded to be shot to death. [sic]” 5 To which Seba stian responded, “Therefore our Lord hath rendered to me life to the end that I should tell you that evilly and cruelly ye do persecutions unto christian [sic] men.” 6

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T he Golden L egend (Aurea L egenda), Compi led by Jacobu s de Vora gine, 1275; tra n sl ated to Engli sh by Wi l li a m Ca x ton, 1483, pg.

104. htt ps://sourcebook s.fordha m.edu / ba si s/golden legend/.

T he Golden L egend (Aurea L egenda), 104.

Ibid.

Ibid.

5 Ibid.

Pi rlo, Fr. Paolo O., SH M I (1997), “ St . Seba sti a n”, My Fi r st Book of Sa int s, Holy M a r y Immacul ate - Qua lit y Cat holic Publication s; pp. 22 -23.

An Exceptional and Unrecorded Saint Sebastian by Jörg Lederer T he sculptor Jörg Lederer was born around 1470, most likely in Füssen, a pict uresque tow n southwest of Munich in the eastern reaches of Upper Swabia - A llgäu near the Aust rian border. T he A llgäu, a region without political borders, extends, more or less, f rom Ravensburg in the west to the Lech River in the east, to the A llgäu A lps in the south, extending into the Vorarlberg and the Tirol in Aust ria, and to Memmingen in the north. T he artistic centers of the A llgäu were Memmingen, where the sculptors Hans Herlin, Hans T homan, and the St rigel family of sculptors and painters held sway, and Kauf beuren, where Jörg Lederer was the leading artistic presence. Document s pertaining to Lederer’s life and work are scant. T he earliest is found in the so -called Citizens Book of Füssen. A n ent r y dated 22 July 1499 states that “Jorig Ledrer der bildhawer” ( Jörg Lederer the sculptor) was made a citizen of Füssen. 8

Fig. 1: Choir Stalls, Jörg Syrlin the Elder, High Altar of Ulm’s Münster, 1469-74.

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He event ually moved to Kauf beuren and his name appears variously in the cit y and provincial archives, in g uild records, and in the protestant parish archives. It is also mentioned in a document along with the names of his neighbors in the “Hintern Gasse am Eck ” (the house still exist s, now Ludwigst raße 51). 9 He is continually mentioned as a warden of the hospital of the Holy Ghost.10 In a passage chronicling the 1531 ent r y of Ferdinand I into Kauf beuren—then an imperial cit y—honoring his election as king of the Romans, Lederer was named as one of three councilmen in attendance, clearly establishing him as a citizen of considerable standing.11 O ver the next years, he assumed several public offices. T he demands of office, along with the Reformation, may explain why there are no know n work s that can be att ributed to him after 1530. He died around 1550 in Kauf beuren.

His apprentice years may have been spent in Kauf beuren in the work shop of either Konrad Köppel or Jakob Bentelin. His Wanderjahre are thought to have taken him to Ulm in Upper Swabia, which in the 16th cent ur y was considered part of the A llgäu.

T here he would have encountered the work of Jörg Sy rlin the Elder, the choir stalls in the Münster, for example (fig. 1), which must have made a lasting impression.

It has been suggested that he worked with Jörg Sy rlin the Younger in the 1490s, noting that the shrine fig ures at Bingen are ref lected in Lederer’s altar piece for the church of St uben near Pf unds in the Oberinntal (fig. 2). T he inf luence of Ulm sculpt ure is also evident in his Virgin and Child on a Crescent Moon in the church of Sankt Georg on the Auerberg.12 Bet ween 1500 and 1507 he paid his g uild dues for the Krämerzunft or Merchant s’ Guild of Kauf beuren, which included painters and sculptors. By 1513 he was a master in the sculptors’ g uild and working in a f lourishing work shop, f ulfilling commissions for churches in South Tirol and elsewhere.

Several apprentices and assistant s were attached to the work shop, and he engaged f reelance craft smen as well. In 1513, for example, he hired a Leonhard Widenmann to make all the cabinet r y for an altar piece and in the same year hired Peter Zech in Kauf beuren to polychrome the sculpt ures for the altar piece in Schlanders.13

Fig. 2: Saint Sebastian, relief of the altar of the Liebfrauenkirche in Stuben/Pfunds, Tirol

T he book (Fü s sener Bürgerbuch) i s in t he Für st lich Oettingen-Wa l ler stein’schen Bibliot hek, Wa ldburg -Wolfegg. See Du s sler, 11.

Ibid., 8.

K a shnit z , 389.

11 Du s sler, 7.

12 Ibid., 10 -11.

13 Ibid., 14 a nd K a shnit z , p. 38 8.

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His principle sur viving work s include a Virgin and Child with Saint Anne (Anna selbdritt), c. 1510 -15, in the Franciscan mona ster y at Reutte in South Tirol; the altarpiece of the Liebfrauenkirche, 1513, at Stuben, near Pfunds in the South Tirol; a group of the Coronation of the Virgin, c. 1513, in Schlanders, South Tirol; the small altarpiece of the of Sankt Martin, 1517, in Göf lan, near Schlanders; the altarpiece, c. 1515, from Hinterkirche, in the South Tirol, now in the Szépmivészti Muzeum, Budapest; the main altarpiece of the Spitalkirche Heilig Geist, 1517-20, at Latsch in the Vintschgau, South Tirol; the main altarpiece, 1518, in the church of Sankt Bla sien, K auf beuren; the main altarpiece of the church of Our Lady and Sankt Josse, 1519, in Hindelang, now in a church in Bad Oberdorf, in the A llgäu; Virgin and Child on a Crescent Moon, c.

1520, in the Sankt Georg church on the Auerberg. Fragmentar y work s include the relief of Saints Seba stian and Christopher, c. 1520 in the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich; the Coronation of the Virgin, c. 1520, from the church in Serfaus, now in the Bode Museum, Berlin; elements of the main altarpiece, 1524 —the la st of his documented altarpieces —for the church in Parschins, now scattered among several churches in the area; and fragments of the main altarpiece, c. 1525, of the church in Nauders, today in the Diözesanmuseum in Bri xen. To these may well be added the present Saint Seba stian. The Saint Seba stian is car ved in ver y high relief, hollowed out in the back, with some of the projecting elements car ved separately and attached to the central core.

For ex a mple, t he R iemen schneider ver sion, now in t he Bayer i sche s Nationa lmu seum.

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T he fig ure is posed f rontally, his feet t urned out ast ride a rough mound, the weight somewhat shifted to his left leg, creating a slight cont rapposto. His right arm, supported by a projecting branch of the t ree to which he is tied, arcs upward over his head. In response to the raised arm, his left shoulder is slightly dropped and the arm, bent at the elbow, rest s on another branch.

Compositionally, the sculpt ure is conser vative, drawing on a formula that appeared several decades earlier.14

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A voluminous cloak partially clads the naked fig ure. Draped over the lower branch at the right, the golden cloak descends in a large V-fold dow n the foot and is then pulled up, t urned inside out revealing the blue lining, and t ucked behind his right hip.

T he cloak is then draped in a broad swath over the large branch to the left only to be raised up and w rapped around his right arm, with only a bit of the lining revealed near his elbow. In realit y, the cloak would fall to the ground if not artf ully supported by the branches. T he seeming, but cont rived ease with which the fabric is t reated is belied by the rich and complex play of folds: small, linear, t ubular around the right arm,

broad open plains and soft folds over the branch at the left, masses of hard, crumpled folds of both the inner and outer sides of the cloak at the waist, the large V-fold centered on the slightly projecting knee f ramed by t wo tight linear folds rising f rom an expansive concave plane, and the f lourish of upt urned fold above his left foot.

T he variet y of draper y folds, the cont rasting ref lective values of the gilded and matte blue surfaces, the rhy thmic, even agitated, play of solids and voids, of shadows and highlight s, create a dramatic, indeed, a theat rical visual cont rast to the concep t ualization of the fig ure that the garment partially envelopes.

T he smooth taught skin meticulously describes the underlying musculat ure and bone st ruct ure of the body. T he rendering of bodily details, such as the t reatment of the navel, the fold of f lesh over the right hip, and the definition of the pectoral muscles and nipples ref lect close anatomical obser vation; ribs, the sternum, even veins are caref ully described. Pathological attention is devoted to the ten wounds where ar rows pierced the saint’s torso and limbs. T here is a slight t umescence and darkening of the f lesh around the wounds f rom which riv ulet s of blood issue. Depressions under the ribs and sternum convey the critical bodily st ress, yet the f lesh tones are vibrant, referencing Sebastian’s miraculous sur vival of the Numidian archers’ onslaught.

His head is slightly canted to his left. T he broad face, encircled by a veritable helmet of dense tight curls, bears an expression of deep contemplativeness yet radiates a numinous calm born of inner spirit ualit y that t ranscends the torment of the f lesh.

With slightly arched eyebrows and some puffiness under the eyes, he gazes not at the viewer but into the space beyond, signaling the faithf ul to see beyond his suffering and to place their faith in God.

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Fig. 3: Hindelang Altarpiece Jรถrg Lederer, Chapel Ease of St. Judokus, Bad Hindelang, c. 1519.

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The dramatic and decorative arrangement of the draper y setting off the naked figure of the saint finds close parallels elsewhere in Lederer’s work. The Saint John the Baptist at the left of the central shrine from the Hindelang altarpiece (fig.

3), for example, relies on ver y much the same formula. Amplitudes of draper y arranged in a rhy thmic array of dramatically varied folds, pressed against the frame on both sides and partially covering the naked

figure, appear suspended, curtain-like, with no apparent means of support. And like the Saint Seba stian, his relatively small head is covered in an abundant ma ss of tight curls. The naturalistic treatment of the f lesh, likewise, contra sts with, and is set off by, the dramatic artificialit y of the draper y.

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Another comparison: note the lower protruding knee, similar to the present St. Sebastian. Saint John the Baptist, altar of St. Blasius Church, Kaufbeuren, c. 1518.

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Fig. 4: (Below) Detail of “The Trinity and the dead Christ�, Spitalkirche zum Heiligen Geist in Latsch, South Tirol.

T he distinctive rendering of the pectoral muscles with a slight fold of f lesh under the prot ruding nipple is mir rored in the fig ure of Christ in the T hrone of Grace in the cent ral shrine of the altar piece at Lat sch (fig. 4).

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Fig. 5: “The Trinity and the dead Christ”, Spitalkirche zum Heiligen Geist in Latsch, South Tirol, c. 1517-20.

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T he scale of Saint Sebastian st rongly suggest s that the sculpt ure came f rom the cent ral shrine of a large altar piece. A s Lederer’s altar pieces all appear to conform to a standard architect ural design with the cent ral shrine divided into three sections and the center one raised by a projecting arch in the predella below, it would be reasonable to assume the present sculpt ure filled the left niche. T he saint would then be facing inward toward the cent ral fig ure, as was the convention, and the long projecting branch to the left would place the fig ure inwards, out of the shadow of the carcass side cast by the light of f lanking windows. T he scale of the fig ure cor responds fairly closely to the f lanking fig ures in the Lat sch altarpiece (fig.5): the height of the Sebastian is 117 cm, while that of the Lat sch fig ures are 106 and 109 cm. T he depth of the Sebastian sculpt ure is 24 cm, while that of the cent ral shrine at Lat sch is 33 cm.

T he overall height of the Lat sch altar piece, including the superst ruct ure and t racer y is 6.85 meters. T he altarpiece f rom which the Saint Sebastian came must have been of a similar scale, a supposition that is st rengthened by the slight foreshortening of the head and torso, giving the viewer below a better perspective. A date of around 1515 to 1520 seems appropriate as the sculpt ure ref lect s the inventive f lourish and sculpt ural intelligence of this mat ure period, predating the f latter fig ural st yle and less f lorid draper y t reatment s encountered a few years later in the Berlin Coronation group and in the sculpt ures f rom Parschins and Nauders. In any event, the present Saint Sebastian constit utes a highly significant addition to the canon of work s by JĂśrg Lederer.

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Bibliography Acta Sanctorum. Sebastiani Martyris, in J.-P. Migne, Patrologiae Cursus Completus Accurante (Paris 1845), XVII, 1021–581221; abbreviated in Jacob de Voragine, Legenda Aurea.

Kashnitz, Rainer, Carved Splendor: Late Gothic Altarpieces in Southern Germany, Austria, South Tirol, Los Angelos, 2006, pp. 386-401.

Brewer, Ebenezer Cobham. A Dictionary of Miracles: Imitative, Realistic, and Dogmatic (Chatto and Windus, 1901).

Koch, Robert A., “Saint Anne with the Virgin and Christ Child,” Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University, 27, no. 2(1968). Pp. 66-7.

Butler, Alban. The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints: Compiled from Original Monuments, and Other Authentic Records, Vol. I. Dublin: Printed by John Exshaw, for John Morris, 1779-80.

Koch, Robert A., “Saint Anne with Her Daughter and Grandson: Notes on a Late Gothic Sculpture in the Art Museum,” Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University, 29, no. 1 (1970), pp. 8-15.

Dussler, Hildegrand, Theodor Mueller, Alfred Schædler. Jörg Lederer. Ein Allgäuer Bildschnitzer der Spätgotik. Werkkatalog bearbeitet von Theodor Müller und Alfred Schädler. Kempten/Allgäu: 1963.

Pirlo, Fr. Paolo O., SHMI (1997). “St. Sebastian”, My First Book of Saints. Holy Mary Immaculate - Quality Catholic Publications.

Dussler, Hildegrand, Theodor Mueller, Alfred Schædler. Jörg Lederer. Ein Allgäuer Bildschnitzer der Spätgotik. Werkkatalog bearbeitet von Theodor Müller und Alfred Schädler.

Kempten/Allgäu: 1963.

Sommer, Clemens, “Eine Madonna des Jörg Lederer,” Berliner Museen, 49, 4 (1928), pp. 94-7.

Farmer, David Hugh. The Oxford Dictionary of Saints. London: Oxford University Press, 1978.

Pages 352-353.

The Golden Legend (Aurea Legenda); Compiled by Jacobus de Voragine, 1275; translated to English

by William Caxton, 1483. https://sourcebooks. fordham.edu/basis/goldenlegend/.

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©2017 Blumka Gallery, New York Julius Böhler Kunsthandlung, Starnberg Hofgalerie Ulrich Hofstätter, Vienna

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Editor: Anthony Blumka, Meghan Combs Photographer: Margaret Nimkin, New York Text: Timothy B. Husband and Meghan Combs Graphic Design: Joshua Fields (Fix AFile.com) Production: Fix AFile.com

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise except for brief quotations in criticism.

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