the third woman turns back, pointing towards the wreath with her left hand. The details of the figures are formed with dense parallel lines and crosshatching within loosely drawn, interrupted outlines. The composition on the verso, showing a seated, naked man and a putto drumming in a landscape, is of poorer quality and was executed by another hand (fig. 2). The inscription on the recto refers to Hans Bocksberger the Elder (ca. 1510 – 1561), a painter from Salzburg. 2
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a n o n y M o u s s i x t e e n t h - c e n t u r y g e r M a n a rt i s t, M a n k i n D ' s r e v i va l o f f a i t h ( v e r s o o f f i g . 1 )
Belonging to the extended Bocksberger family of painters, he carried out various commissions from the 1530s, mainly for
frescos in Salzburg, Linz, Bavaria and Prague. The activity of the family was first discussed in detail by Max Goering, but the Budapest drawing was not mentioned in his article of 1930.2 It was Heinrich Geissler who first discussed it in his dissertation on Christoph Schwarz, and later in the catalogue of the 1979 Stuttgart exhibition of German drawings executed between 1550 and 1650.3 Geissler regarded the inscription as a signature and claimed the design was an original work by Hans Bocksberger the Elder. The Albertina, Vienna preserves a sheet depicting an animal fight, with an inscription very similar to that of the Budapest sheet: “1557 / der alt Hans Poxperger / V. Saltzburg hatt / ditz gemacht” [1557, the old Hans Poxperger from Salzburg executed this]4 (fig. 3). Goering was already familiar with this drawing, showing a fight between bears, lions, an elephant and billy-goats, and he, along with later authors, regarded it as Hans Bocksberger the Elder’s authentic work.5 In her 2003 monograph about the Bocksberger family, Susanne Kaeppele accepted only this Fight of Wild Animals as Hans Bocksberger the Elder’s autograph work,6 thought that a Hunting Scene in the Museum Nordico in Linz may be regarded as original with reservation,7 while she listed the Budapest sheet among the works erroneously attributed to the artist.8 Kaeppele’s arguments against Bocksberger’s authorship included the Budapest drawing’s lack of affinity with known works of the master, and the dissimilarity of the facial types to his painted figures. Based on the drawing’s style, she proposed a dating to the period after 1600. Furthermore, she pointed to inaccuracies such as the unclear position of the left leg of the standing woman, as well as the inconsistencies in the relative proportions of the two male figures. The leg in the bottom left 164