Altdorfer Landscape Estimated at £3M-£5M Heads Auction
A previously unknown landscape painting by German Renaissance artist Albrecht Altdorfer will be offered at Sotheby’s Old Masters Evening Sale in London on December 9.
The work depicts a wooded scene with a rainbow against a clouded sky, dating around 1520.
The painting surfaced from a Swiss private collection and was not listed in Altdorfer’s catalogue raisonné. It is only the third known oil landscape by Altdorfer.
George Gordon, chairman of Sotheby’s Worldwide Old Masters Department, called the discovery remarkable. “To add to the known body of work of one of the great masters of the Northern Renaissance is one of the most exciting discoveries imaginable in our field,” Gordon said.
The current owner inherited the work from his father, who acquired it in 1957 from the collection of the noble Austrian House of Harrach. The signed painting, created on parchment and later affixed to a wooden panel, is the smallest of Altdorfer’s known landscapes. It features a distant castle on a rocky outcrop beyond a rain-soaked forest. Altdorfer, born in Regensburg in 1480, spent most of his career there, also serving as a politician, before his death in 1538. His landscapes are inspired by the mixed deciduous and evergreen forests along the Danube near Regensburg.
The last time an Altdorfer painting appeared on the market was in 1980, when the National Gallery reportedly paid £2.4 million (around £13.4 million today) for Christ Taking Leave of His Mother (circa 1520).
“We don’t really know what it’s worth because it’s many decades since an Altdorfer last came to the market,” Gordon stated. “It could fetch more than our estimate. I think it’s quite likely that museums will be interested.”
Photo: Rayan Bamhayan, Sotheby's