Lot 136: JOHANN KÖNIG

JOHANN KÖNIG NUREMBERG 1586 - 1642 THE BAPTISM OF CHRIST signed and dated lower left: Johan: Konig./ f: 1637 oil on copper 37.8 by 28 cm.; 15 by 11 in.

Anonymous sale, Stuttgart, Nagel, 10 December 1994, lot 3531;
Anonymous sale, Cologne, Lempertz, 19 November 2005, lot 1086.

This mature work by König, painted in 1637 just five years before his death, evokes the artist's learning in both Venice and Rome, the two major influences on his art. In the former he was profoundly affected by the palette of Veronese and his contemporaries and in the latter by the technical achievement of Adam Elsheimer's and Paul Bril's miniature landscapes on copper; the present work successfully fuses both aspects of such learning.