HANS SCHAUFELEIN
134 Christ Taking Leave of
His Mother
Pen and brown ink and black chalk; H: 27.6 cm (ioI3/i
in.); W: 21.1 cm (8^5 /i6in.)
85.GA.43 8
MARKS AND INSCRIPTIONS: At top, signed HS with
shovel emblem and dated 1510 in brown ink (dat
slightly trimmed); at bottom left corner, inscribed Han
Schiuele in black ink by a later hand.
PROVENANCE: Comte Hubert Pourtales, Paris(?); M.
Cassirer, Berlin; Dr. Tobias Christ, Basel (sale, Sothe
by's, London, April 9, 1981, lot 7); Robert Smith, Wash
ington, D.C.; art market, New York.
EXHIBITIONS: Meister um Albrecht Durer, Germanisches
Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg, July-September 1961,
no. 310 (catalogue by P. Streider et al.).
BIBLIOGRAPHY: K. T. Parker, "Hans Leonard Schaufe
lein," Old Master Drawings 10 (December 1935), p. 50; F.
Winkler, Die Zeichnungen Hans Suss von Kulmbach und
Hans Leonard Schaufelein (Berlin, 1942), pp. 128-129,
no. 44; P. Murray, "Zwei Gemalde des Abschieds Christi
aus dem Diirerkreise," Wallraf-Richartz-Jahrbuch 16
(1954), pp. 209-210.6 e s - - -THIS IS ONE OF A NUMBER OF REPRESENTATIONS OF
Christ's leave-taking by Schaufelein in various media, in-
cluding another drawing in the British Museum, Lon-
don (inv. 1892-8-4-21; Winkler 1942, no. n), a woodcut
in Ulrich Pinder's Speculum passionis of 1507 (6.34-3 [253]
v. 11,7), and two paintings (Staatliche Museen Preus-
sischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin [formerly Halle]; art market
[formerly London, private collection]). The subject ap-
pears in two fourteenth-century devotional texts, the
Marienleben and the Meditations on the Life of Christ. In
both, the Virgin, attended by Mary and Martha, bewails
the imminent Passion of Christ and expresses her desire
to accompany him. Among Schaufelein's other repre-
sentations of the theme, the Museum's drawing is closest
to the one in the British Museum and to the woodcut. As
in the former, the Virgin is joined by two rather than
three attendants, and Christ has been placed on the left
side of the composition. The Getty Museum's drawing
is more similar still to the woodcut, however, especially
in the poses and details of the Virgin and Christ. The
source for Schaufelein's conception of the scene is Diirer's
woodcut Christ Taking Leave of His Mother from the Life
of the Virgin (6.92(132] v. 10, 7) (Parker 1935, p. 50). The
wooden gate and fence as well as the view of Jerusalem
in the background are already present in Diirer's print,
while the round citadel in the center of the latter has been
transformed into a Gothic chapel in Schaufelein's
drawing.
Stylistically, the Getty Museum's drawing is much
more developed and assured than the earlier depiction of
the subject in the British Museum of circa 1507, which is
unfinished. The figures here are more substantial and the
lines more animated and varied. The sheet is analogous
in these respects to three drawings of the life of Saint Pe-
ter in the Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen
(Winkler 1942, nos. 46-48).300 GERMAN SCHOOL • SCHAUFELEIN