SEBALD BEHAM
1500-155 0
116 The Circumcision
Pen and brown ink, red chalk, and gray, red, and brown
wash; diam. 22.8 cm (9 in.)
89.00.7 (SEE PLATE 15)
MARKS AND INSCRIPTIONS: Inscribed with color nota-
tions throughout in red chalk.
PROVENANCE: Private collection, Switzerland; art mar-
ket, Boston.
EXHIBITIONS: None.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: None.
DURING THE EARLY 15205 BEHAM AND HIS SHOP WERE
actively engaged in the production of designs for stained-
glass windows, as is indicated by twenty-five or more
surviving drawings showing scenes from the lives of the
Virgin and Christ. All roundels of approximately the
same size, they are of varying character, ranging from
loosely drawn examples in pen and ink alone to highly
worked sheets modeled with washes and supplied with
color notations and red chalk lines indicating the place-
ment of glass sections and leading. The present drawing
is among the most finished of the group and as such is
comparable to examples in the Ashmolean Museum
(inv. P. 274, 275), Nationalmuseum, Stockholm (inv.
NM 507/1971, NM 508/1971), and Kupferstichkabinett,
Berlin (inv. Kdz 15098).
Opinion varies as to whether these drawings were
made for one, two, or more series of windows. Accord-
ing to P. Bjurstrôm,^1 the aforementioned Stockholm
roundels formed part of a Life of the Virgin, which
might have included the present example. The pose of
the Christ child recalls that in the Circumcision from
Dürer's woodcut series The Life of the Virgin
(B.86[i32]v.io,7), while the simplified linear style and
homespun piety of the figures recall the woodcut of the
Circumcision by Hans Schàufelein (B. 19(250]v. n,7).^21. Drawings in Swedish Public Collections i: German Drawings
(Stockholm, 1972), under no. n.- Another version of the present drawing (formerly E. Ro-
drigues collection) is currently on the art market. See K. T. Par-
ker, Catalogue of the Collection of Drawings in the Ashmolean Mu-
seum (Oxford, 1938), vol. i, p. 117, under no. 274.
208 CENTRAL EUROPEAN SCHOOL • S. BEHAM