Lot 25: JOHANN KÖNIG

PAINTING AND SCULPTURE AMONG THE SEVEN LIBERAL ARTS

40 by 54 cm.; 15 3/4 by 21 1/4 in.

oil on copper

This hitherto unknown copper is an exciting addition to Johann König's oeuvre. It was most likely painted between 1607 and 1610, when the artist was still influenced by Rottenhammer but had arrived in Venice, where he absorbed the local artistic trends.

The design of Painting and Sculpture among the Seven Liberal Arts should be compared to König's Toilet of Bathsheba in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. (1) Both the present work and the Oxford painting are framed by classical architecture, an element which finds its roots in Veronese; in particular his Marriage at Cana, now in the Musée du Louvre in Paris, of which König is known to have carried out an untraced copy in miniature. (2)

This early work provides a useful reference point for the dating of König's work as it can be contrasted to a later, but equally complex composition of Minerva and the Nine Muses sold in these Rooms in 2006. (3) The important difference is that the latter scene is set in a landscape inescapably reminiscent of Elsheimer, whose style König drifted towards after moving to Rome.

The isolated figures are typical of his work and the facial types are entirely consistent with other paintings by the artist: the long faces with almond eyes and small straight noses; the small mouths above round chins. The richly-embroidered fabrics, particularly in the dress of the central figure of Music, underline his miniaturist training.

A statue of the naked Minerva, patron of arts and sciences, looks over the scene. Personifications of Painting and Sculpture are followed by the seven liberal arts shown here from left to right as: Grammar; Arithmetic; Music; Logic, standing; Geometry; Rhetoric; and Astronomy, seated. Above them is Mercury, a figure lifted from Tintoretto's Saint Mark freeing the slave in the Accademia in Venice. (4) Including the figures ofPainting and Sculpture with the other traditional seven figures suggests that, should there be an underlying meaning to this work, Painting and Sculpture should be elevated to the same rank as the other classical arts.

The entry is based on a report by Dr. Gode Krämer who will be including the painting in his forthcoming catalogue raisonné of the artist's works.

1. See Ashmolean Museum, Complete Illustrated Catalogue of Paintings, C. Casley et al (ed.s), Oxford 2004, p. 124, reproduced in colour.
2. See R. Marini, Veronese, l'opera completa, Milan 1968, p. 105, cat. no. 91, reproduced in colour plates XX-XXI.
3. Minerva and the Nine Muses sold London, Sotheby's, 6 December 2006, lot 3, for £140,000.
4. See P. De Vecchi, Tintoretto, l'opera completa, Milan 1970, p. 92, cat. no. 64, reproduced in colour plate III.