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https://piction.clevelandart.org/cma/ump.di?e=9B20B6B925BB8F6862D29723CBD761B96E50FE6998C1E036594E7A3738684A44&s=24247294&se=777892894&v=2&f=1946.217_o2.jpg

https://piction.clevelandart.org/cma/ump.di?e=A168DBF3EE997022050C80ACA87B3BF77764A43CE93D5975A6375DA0ED088CF3&s=24247294&se=777892894&v=1&f=%5C1946.217_o2.jpg

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Nov 11, 2011

Feb 18, 2009

Dead Blue Roller

1583

after Albrecht Dürer

(German, 1471–1528)

Hans Hoffmann

(German, 1545/50–1591/92)

Germany, 16th century

Watercolor and gouache with touches of gold

Support: Cream(1) laid paper, laid down on cream(1) wove paper

Sheet: 29.2 x 16.9 cm (11 1/2 x 6 5/8 in.); Secondary Support: 29.2 x 16.9 cm (11 1/2 x 6 5/8 in.)

Dudley P. Allen Fund 1946.217

Location

not on view

Did you know?

This realistic portrait of a dead bird signals a turn toward objective depictions of nature in the 1500s.

Description

Half a century after the death of the German Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer, his work continued to inspire artists and collectors. Hans Hoffmann was well known for his copies of Dürer’s nature studies, and in 1583 he faithfully copied Dürer’s celebrated drawing of a dead blue roller of 1512 in this exquisite watercolor. A network of very fine brushstrokes imitates the individual plumes of the bird’s underside while simultaneously suggesting an overall soft, downy texture. Several other copies of Dürer's composition exist, including one by Hoffmann in London. Both the London sheet and this sheet were signed with Hoffman’s prominent monogram and dated, indicating that he could not have intended them to pass as originals by the older master. Likely, he meant the drawing as an homage to the greatest German artist of the 1500s; his endeavor may have been sponsored by the Nuremberg-based Imhoff family, who owned Dürer's blue roller around the time this drawing was made.

Inscriptions

Inscription

signed, lower center, in gray ink: 1583 / [artist's monogram: Hh]; verso, upper left, in ink (?, visible through transmitted light): 182 [sideways]; upper right, in ink (?): 7 [illegible]; center left, in ink (?): 182; lower left, in ink (?): [11?]; lower center, in ink (?): 50; verso of secondary support, lower right, in graphite: 3.

Provenance

around 1580-1616

Paul von Praun, 1548-1616, Nuremberg-Bologna

1801-1822?

Johann Friedrich Frauenholz, 1758-1822, Nuremberg

?-1864

Johann Andreas Boerner, 1785-1862, Nuremberg, his sale, Rudolph Weigel Kunst Auction, Leipzig, 28 November 1864, lot 113.

around 1864-1883

Theodor Oswald Weigel, 1812-1881, Leipzig, his sale, Gutekunst Stuttgart, 8 May 1883, no. 444.

around 1883-1910

A. Freiherr von Lanna, Prague, 1836-1909, (Lugt 2773, stamped, verso, center), his sale Gutekunst Stuttgard, 6-11 May, 1910, lot 296: sold to Charles Obach.

1910

With Charles Obach, art dealer, London

around 1910-1936

Henry Oppenheimer, 1859-1932, London, his sale, Christie's London, 10 and 13-14 July, 1936, no. 380: sold to Heinrich Eisemann.

1936-around 1946

Heinrich Eisemann, 1890-1972, Frankfurt-London

1946

with Schaeffer Galleries, Inc., New York

1946-

The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH

Citations

Weigel, J. A. G. Catalog einer Sammlung von Original-Handzeichnungen der deutschen, holländischen, flandrischen, italienischen, französischen, spanischen und englischen Schule. Leipzig: T.O. Weigel, 1869. Mentioned and reproduced: cat. no. 50, p. 10 archive.org

Winkler, Friedrich. Die Zeichnungen Albrecht Dürers. Berlin: Deutscher Verein für kunstwissenschaft, 1936. Mentioned and reproduced: vol. 3, pp. 59-60, under no. 615

Francis, Henry S. "Drawing of a Dead Blue Jay by Hans Hoffmann." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art. 34, no. 1 (1947): 13-15. Mentioned: pp. 13-14; reproduced: p. 15 www.jstor.org

Kurz, Otto. Fakes: A Handbook for Collectors and Students. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1948. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 97

Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Watercolors by the Masters: Dürer to Cézanne. Minneapolis: Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 1952. Mentioned: no. 6

Pilz, Kurt. "Hans Hoffmann: Ein Nürnberger Dürer-Nachahmer aus der 2. Hälfte des 16. Jahrhunderts." Mitteilungen des Vereins für Geschichte der Stadt Nürnberg 51 (1962), pp. 236-272. Mentioned: no. 25, pp. 261-62 periodika.digitale-sammlungen.de

Koschatzky, Walter and Alice Strobl. Dürer drawings in the Albertina. Greenwich, Conn: New York Graphic Society, 1972. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 108, under no. 34

Johnson, Mark M. Idea to Image: Preparatory Studies from the Renaissance to Impressionism. Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1980. Mentioned and reproduced: pp. 15-16, fig. 8

Kaufmann, Thomas DaCosta. Drawings from the Holy Roman Empire, 1540-1680. A Selection from North American Collections. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982. Mentioned and reproduced: no. 26, pp. 88-89

Koreny, Fritz. Albrecht Dürer and the animal and plant studies of the Renaissance. Boston: Little, Brown, 1988. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 56, fig. 11.1

Achilles-Syndram, Katrin. Die Kunstsammlung des Paulus Praun: die Inventare von 1616 und 1719. Nürnberg: Im Selbstverlag des Stadtrats zu Nürnberg, 1994. Mentioned and reproduced: pp. 244-45, under no. 355

Schoch, Rainer, Katrin Achilles-Syndram, and Bernd M. Mayer. Kunst des Sammelns: das Praunsche Kabinett : Meisterwerke von Dürer bis Carracci. Nürnberg: Verlag des Germanischen Nationalmuseums, 1994. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 204, note 6, under no. 69.

DeGrazia, Diane and Carter E. Foster. Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art in association with Rizzoli International Publications, New York, 2000. Mentioned and reproduced: cat. no. 62, pp. 154-55, p. 292

Dunbar, Burton L., et al. A Corpus of Drawings in Midwestern Collections: Sixteenth-Century. Northern European Drawings. London, England: Harvey Miller, 2012. Mentioned and reproduced: no. 99, pp. 163-65

Exhibition history

Watercolors by the Masters: Dürer to Cézanne. Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, MN (organizer) (May 1-June 15, 1952).

German Drawings. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 11-December 18, 1955).

Drawings from the Museum Collection: 15th-17th Centuries. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (May 18-October 11, 1960).

Water Color. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 6-August 27, 1962).

Drawings. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 11-September 10, 1963).

European Watercolors Through the 18th Century. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 14-March 22, 1964).

Idea to Image: Preparatory Studies from the Renaissance to Impressionism. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (February 19-March 23, 1980).

Drawings from the Holy Roman Empire, 1540-1680: A Selection from North American Collections. Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, NJ (organizer) (October 2-November 21, 1982); National Gallery of Art, Landover, MD (January 27-April 11, 1983); Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, PA (April 23-June 19, 1983).

The Magic of Still Life. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 4, 1986-February 1, 1987).

Treasures on Paper. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (May 10-July 24, 1988).

The German Tradition. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (April 27-June 27, 1993).

Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 27-October 17, 2000); The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY (May 23-August 19, 2001); Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, TX (October 14, 2001-January 6, 2002).

Treasures on Paper from the Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 9-June 8, 2014).

Cite this page

{{cite web|title=Dead Blue Roller|url=https://clevelandart.org/art/1946.217|author=Albrecht Dürer|year=1583|access-date=02 November 2023|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

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Dead Blue Roller

Dead Blue Roller

after Albrecht Dürer

Hans Hoffmann

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