Hans Heinrich Wägmann Sold at Auction Prices

f - HANS HEINRICH WÄGMANN ZÜRICH 1557 - 1627 (?) BATTLE SCENE

pen and dark brown ink and brown wash over black chalk, lightly squared for transfer in black chalk, six sided format PROVENANCE Possibly Meyer-am Rhyn Collection (according to Thöne; see note); Freiherr Reinhold von Liphart, Dorpat (L.1758, recto, lower right, with his inventory number, 1298); Karl Eduard von Liphart, Dorpat (L.1687), his sale, Leipzig, C.G. Boerner, 26ff April 1898, lot 375 (as anonymous stained glass design); Kurt Meissner, Zürich (bears his mark, verso, not in Lugt) EXHIBITED Bremen, Kunsthalle, and Zürich, Kunsthaus, Handzeichnungen Alter Meister aus Schweizer Privatbesitz, 1967, cat. no. 206, reproduced (exhibition subsequently repeated in Münster, Westfälisches Landesmuseum, and Baden-Baden, Staatliche Kunsthalle); Stanford, CA, Art Gallery, The Detroit Institute of Arts, and Finch College Museum of Art, New York, Old Master Drawings from the Collection of Kurt Meissner, Zürich, 1969-70, cat. no. 81, reproduced; Zürich, Galerie Kurt Meissner, Hundert Zeichnungen aus Fünf Jahrhunderten, 1984, cat. no. 88, reproduced; Lucerne, Historisches Museum, Die 'geretten' Bilder der Kapellbrücke, 1998; New York, C.G. Boerner, 400 Years of Swiss Drawing. The Kurt Meissner Collection, 2001, cat. no. 5, reproduced LITERATURE AND REFERENCES F. Thöne, 'Hans Heinrich Wägmann als Zeichner. Ein Beitrag zur Luzerner Zeichenkunst und Malerei von Wägmann bis Storer', Schweizerisches Institut für Kunstwissenschaft. Jahresbericht und Jahrbuch, 1966, p. 149, no. 39, reproduced fig. 127 CATALOGUE NOTE This drawing was first recognised by Friedrich Thöne as the design by Wägmann for one of the highly important cycle of no fewer than 158 paintings of the same unusual format, which the artist executed between 1611 and about 1614 for the famous covered Kapellbrücke, in Lucerne. Although the subject of the present drawing cannot be identified, it seems the overall theme of the paintings revolved around notable episodes in local history. Thöne also suggested that this drawing is very probably the same battle scene by Wägmann exhibited in Lucerne in 1869, and at that time in the Meyer-am Rhyn Collection.