Scholarly Catalogue of German Painting in the Städel Museum, 1550-1800: Part 1 (1550-1725)

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Jochen Sander
• Subject Area: Art History
• Term: from 2015 to 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 278031662

For more than two decades, the Städel Museum has been devoted to the intensive scholarly examination of its painting holdings. Since the first catalogue on Early Netherlandish painting submitted by the applicant in 1993, all scholarly catalogues have been distinguished by the systematic integration of technological investigation methods (microscopy, ultraviolet fluorescence, infrared reflectography, X-ray, dendrochronology). The entire holdings of Netherlandish, German and Italian paintings dating from before 1550 as well as the Dutch and Flemish paintings of the Baroque have meanwhile been examined. Now the work on the German paintings after 1550 is to commence. Part 1 of the three-part project of drawing up the scholarly catalogue of German Baroque painting is hereby being applied for. Within a period of three years, seventy-six German paintings dating from 1550-1725, comprising altogether eighty-two individual panels, are to be comprehensively investigated. This group includes the important group of panels by Adam Elsheimer and his circle revolving around the Altarpiece of the Exaltation of the True Cross, but also paintings by Hans Rottenhammer, Georg Flegel, Paul Juvenel the Elder, Johann Ulrich Mayr and Johann Heinrich Roos. Each individual object is to be documented comprehensively with its history, and the current state of research on the respective work in relation to important issues is to be presented. The subsequent discussion will embed the works in the current research discourse. One special concern will be with monographic issues localizing a painting in the oeuvre of the respective painter. In this context, the work's genesis, attribution and dating are to be clarified, and an interpretation of the content carried out, taking both the iconography and the context of the work's execution into account. The latter aspect bears a relation to the overall discussion of German painting in the Early Modern era, in which matters related to art theory, regional and international exchange, and the social history of art are particularly virulent. With its specific methodological interest in painting technique and work genesis, this project aims to participate in that discussion. The collaboration between the responsible art historian and the conservator will guarantee a verified factual foundation for all further interpretation.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants