(Nuremberg circa 1580–1617)
The Presentation of Christ at the Temple,
signed and dated on the front of the pedestal, lower left: Harrich 1615,
oil on panel, 97 x 97.5 cm, framed

Provenance:
Private collection, Buenos Aires

We are grateful to Rainer Stüwe for confirming the attribution of the present painting (written communication) and for his help in cataloguing this work.

The present painting is a previously unknown panel and is a significant addition to the artist’s oeuvre.

The composition is based on a woodcut by Albrecht Dürer from 1504–05. However, here the composition is simplified with fewer overlapping figures and with more emphasis placed on ornamental features, such as the carpet on the altar and the depiction of the background, with an extended sense of space to the left.

The Presentation of Christ at the Temple is depicted in a room where the ceiling is supported by black marbled columns; to the left one can see the main building. The Virgin is shown kneeling with her back to an aperture in front of an altar, offering with both hands a gift of two pigeons in a small cage. The altar is decorated with a carpet which is partially covered by a white cloth. On the other side of the altar is the long-bearded high priest, distinctive in a golden garment and a tall golden headpiece, reminiscent of a Christian bishop’s miter, presenting the Child. A white cloth, ornamented with a golden menorah, hangs from the ceiling above the high priest. Also present are figures lined up behind the altar. The old man to the right of Joseph is Simeon, whilst the old woman dressed in a white headscarf and a grey cloak is Anna the Prophetess. On the far left of the composition the Apostle Luke is leaning on the lectern and propping up a book.

Harrich is considered to be one of the most important masters of Albrecht Dürer’s Nuremberg copyists from the first half of the seventeenth century. Harrich’s characteristic style was defined by a caricatural overdrawing of head types which included distinctive features derived from Dürer. An example can be observed in the present work in the head of the Simeon to the right of Joseph, which derives from the central panel of Dürer’s Frankfurt Heller altarpiece. The head of the Apostle Luke in the present work was also reversed from the famous motif of the kneeling apostle from the Frankfurt Heller Altarpiece, distinguishable by the soles of his feet that face the viewer. Jobst Harrich made a copy of the Frankfurt altarpiece in 1611 to replace its original, that was sold to Maximilian I, Duke of Bavaria.