Lot 190: ANTON KERN

ANTON KERN TETSCHEN, BOHEMIA 1709 - 1747 DRESDEN MOSES TRAMPLING ON PHARAOH'S CROWN oil on canvas 141 by 187 cm.; 55 1/2 by 73 5/8 in.

U. Ruggeri, Valentin Lefèvre, Manerba 2001, p. 91, cat. no. Q17, reproduced in colour plate IV (as Valentin Lefèvre).

Anonymous sale, Vienna, Dorotheum, 4 July 1992, lot 15 (as Valentin Lefèvre).

The present work has in the past been attributed to Valentin Lefèvre (see Literature). However, the brushy handling of the figures does not fit into the smoother elements of Venetian seventeenth-century painting, and so the hand of Lefèvre can safely be excluded. The work in fact dates from the eighteenth century and can be attributed to the German artist Anton Kern, who worked in Giambattista Pittoni's studio from 1725 to 1735. The architectural elements certainly find their roots in Veronese, by whom Valentin was heavily influenced (and presumably wherein lies the past attributional confusion) but the handling of paint and the deliberate, almost affected movements of the dramatis personae, unmistakeably point towards the eighteenth century.

We are grateful to Dr. Andrew John Martin for proposing the attribution and for suggesting that the dwarf in the red-and-white costume is a possible self-portrait of the artist. Dr. Martin specifically compares the dwarf's physiognomy to that in Kern's self-portrait in the National Gallery of Prague, inv. no. K 46410 (see fig. 1). υ1

1. See Anton Kern, Paintings and Drawings in Czech Lands, exh. cat., Prague 1998, p. 37, cat. no. K1.