(Munich 1564–1625 Augsburg) and Ambrosius Francken the Younger (Antwerp 1616-after 1632),
The Venus of Urbino in a Flemish interior, oil on panel, 32 x 43 cm, framed,

We are grateful to Prof Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, Princeton, for identifying Rottenhammer as the painter of this Venus. We are grateful to Dr Ursula Härting, Hamm, for confirming its authenticity based on an examination of the original. We would like to thank Dr Klaus Ertz, Lingen, who has also suggested Rottenhammer as the painter.

The extraordinary quality of this depiction of the Venus of Urbino makes this painting one of the most interesting examples of Rottenhammer’s collaboration with the Flemish artists of his time. Hans Rottenhammer has been suggested on many occasions as the artist responsible for this Venus. Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, who has worked extensively on the drawings in the artist’s oeuvre (see his essay on the subject in ‘Hans Rottenhammer, begehrt, vergessen, neu entdeckt’, Munich 2008), has identified in detail the characteristic draughtsmanship of the artist, despite its closeness to Titian’s work. The interior in the background, which is the setting for Venus, corresponds in terms of its composition and its coloration with several works by Abel Grimmer and the Francken workshop. Dr Härting identified it with certainty on the basis of the free and assured brushwork as a work by Ambrosius Francken II, whose oeuvre has only recently been the subject of academic study. Francken would have added in this background subsequently, on the arrival of the painting by Rottenhammer, who was also popular in Antwerp. The present high quality cabinet painting mirrors the taste of aristocratic and upper-class collectors of this period.