(Schwäbisch Gmünd? 1484/85–1545 Strasbourg)
The Drunken Bacchus,
oil on panel, 34 x 23.5 cm, framed

We are grateful to Peter Klein and Gunnar Heydenreich for their technical analyses of the present painting. Klein dates the beech panel to circa 1526.

We are also grateful to Anna Moraht-Fromm for suggesting the attribution to Hans Baldung’s flourishing workshop in Strasbourg. Her extensive written analysis accompanies the present lot.

The present painting depicts the inebriated god Bacchus, surrounded by frolicking and drinking bacchantes, gazing hazily towards the beholder, in a characteristically eccentric Baldung composition, which frequently incorporated mischievous overtones. With its origins in ancient literature, the iconographic theme of the Bacchanal was especially valued by Renaissance collectors and men of letters. The subject, if positively connoted, enabled the depiction of supernatural beings that express the joy of life, of drunkenness and sensuality. However, Anna Moraht-Fromm also observes that the topic could be interpreted as a moralising memento in the context of the increasingly obvious dangers of widespread alcoholism in the sixteenth century. This humanistic approach, contextualising a Bacchanal in pictorial cycles reminding collectors of the seven deadly sins, is another plausible explanation for the popularity of the subject. Undoubtedly the present small panel was conceived to enrich a contemporary collector’s Kunstkammer or cabinet, and may well have formed part of a wider ranged picture cycle with a warning content, including other depictions of dangerous moral conduct.

The composition closely relates to a drawing of the same subject and of almost identical dimensions that is dated 1517 (Hans Baldung, The drunken Bacchus, Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin, inv. no. KdZ 289). Baldung treated the subject on several other occasions such as in a woodcut conserved in New York (Hans Baldung, The drunken Bacchus, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, inv. no. 27.54.7.;). He could have been familiar with the subject through Andrea Mantegna’s invention, a print of which he might have seen in the workshop of Albrecht Dürer, where he was an apprentice from 1503 to 1507. The composition of the present painting appears to have been Baldung’s very own. In interpreting, essentially transferring free-handedly the black and white Berlin drawing to the panel painting, Baldung’s collaborator not only stuck closely to his master’s design in terms of draughtsmanship, but closely followed Baldung’s palette, too. Moraht-Fromm concludes, based on the obvious similarities in colouring when compared to other works from the Baldung workshop, that the artist must have known Baldung’s paintings, or have had them at close hand when painting the present painting. This is especially apparent in the finely nuanced flesh tones of the figures or the bright blue coloured sky above the richly brown toned ground. Characteristic traits of Baldung’s style can be seen too in the repeated accentuation of areas with bright blue paint, repeated in many other known works. In the case of the present painting, this is exemplified by the blue bow tied around the waist of the Bacchante centre righ, as well as the blue and yellow dunce cap of the Bacchante in the back to Bacchus’ left.

Baldung appears to have had a penchant for depicting putti and frolicking Bacchantes, as is obvious in many other examples, among them a Holy Family now in Jersey (Hans Baldung, The Holy Family with five angels, The Klesch Collection, Jersey), or, more poignantly yet, in his Coronation of the Virgin, the central panel of his Freiburg altarpiece.

Reinterpretations, variations and repetitions of the master’s compositions appear to have been common practise in Baldung’s busy workshop. A drawing by an apprentice (Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe, inv. no. VIII 1072), after an existing panel painting by Baldung (Kunstmuseum, Basel, inv. no. 856), exemplifies this working practise. Interestingly, the relationship between drawing and finished painting is reversed in the present example when compared to the Karlsruhe drawing after the Basel panel. In both cases, a genesis of the composition based on the master’s model, possibly under his direct supervision, is inconceivable and would not be in keeping with workshop practises of the period, had not the artist in both cases had direct access to the models. The clearly visible underdrawing in the present painting does not show any pentimenti, which is also a clear indicator that Baldung’s student, when creating the present painting, worked directly from his master’s drawing.

Unlike most of his contemporaries, who continued the artisanal practices of their fathers, Baldung was born into a prosperous family of lawyers and doctors. An indication of his family’s erudition and elevated social position is seen in the life of his relative Hieronymous Baldung, who was the personal physician of the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I. In the 1490s, Baldung’s family moved from Schwäbisch Gmünd, Swabia, to Strasbourg, where the artist lived for most of his career. The young artist must have received his early training in that city, though the identity of his first teacher is unknown. Baldung was a precocious talent, whose mastery of the graphic arts is already evident in the early Self-Portrait (circa 1502, Kunstmuseum, Basel, inv. no. U.VI.36), in which he appears in a stylish hat, confidently looking out at the viewer. In 1503, aged eighteen, Baldung moved to Nuremberg, where he entered the workshop of Albrecht Dürer. There, he appears to have earned his nickname ‘Grien’ (green), probably inspired by his love for the colour and assigned to him in the shop to distinguish him from the numerous other assistants named Hans like Hans Schäufelein. During Dürer’s second trip to Venice in 1505–07, the master left Baldung in charge of his workshop, and they seemingly enjoyed a close friendship, as when Dürer died, the younger artist was sent a lock of his hair, which was found amongst Baldung’s effects after his own death in 1545. Baldung left the workshop shortly after Dürer’s return in 1507, and two years later settled in Strasbourg. Though Baldung’s art was informed by that of his master, he quickly developed his own, eccentric style. While Dürer’s art tended to be dignified and often concerned with theory, measurement and formal perfection, Baldung’s was impetuous and often intentionally informal, such as in the present composition.