Hans Wertinger 1465/6–1533
NG 6568 
Summer

Susan Foister, 2024

Extracted from:
Susan Foister; with Rachel Billinge, Marika Spring and Lea Viehweger; and contributions by Lorne Campbell and Allison Goudie, The German Paintings before 1800 (London: National Gallery Global and Yale University Press, 2024).

Oil on wood, 23.2 × 39.5 cm

Provenance

The picture was formerly in a private collection in Spain, probably before 1927 and certainly by 1936.¹ It was purchased by the National Gallery through Sotheby’s in 1997.

Versions

A scene of rural activity attributed to Wertinger, formerly with Colnaghi, shows a similar sheep shearer (fig. 27).²

Exhibitions

NG 1999.

Technical Notes

The picture was cleaned and restored in 1997–8, when overpaint masking the gilded decoration was removed. The paint is largely in good condition. There is a roughly circular paint loss of about 1.5 cm in diameter in the landscape lower right, and some losses associated with old splits in the wood. The water, sky and lighter parts of the foreground landscape are very thinly painted and the paint has become more transparent over time, making the underdrawing more visible. Some fading of lake pigments and discoloration of greens has also occurred.

The support is a wood panel, probably lime, consisting of three boards with vertical grain, joined vertically. The panel is constructed from two wider boards with a narrower one between. The joins are at 16.7 and 22.7 cm from the left edge, measured on the reverse; the two wide boards are about 17 cm in width with a 6 cm strip in between. The panel thickness is about 5 mm. The side edges appear to have been trimmed slightly: the ground stops short of the edges but leaving only a narrow strip of exposed wood on both sides; the top and bottom edges have both been cut.

The back of the panel has exposed worm channels, which might provide evidence that the panel has been thinned. A D‐shaped original insert has been put into the panel lower right (fig. 1), presumably to replace a knot. The panel has a marked convex warp of up to 2 cm. Two non‐original cross battens were removed in 1997 and several old vertical splits made secure (the X‐radiograph was made before this panel treatment). The wood has been damaged by woodworm but is otherwise in good condition.

The white ground contains chalk. It has not been possible to discover whether or not there is a priming.

The composition has been extensively and freely underdrawn with a brush, with hatching used to indicate the shadows on the tree trunk, left, and the cliff, right, as well as on the roofs of the buildings in the background (fig. 7). There have been no major alterations to the composition at the painting stage, although as the drawing is free the painted figures do not always follow it exactly and there are several details drawn but not painted, for example a bird drawn rising from the water to the right of the central tree (fig. 2).

The decorative corner elements are mordant‐gilded using an orange‐red mordant containing mainly earth pigments; FTIR analysis suggests they are bound with oil (fig. 3). The details are painted over the gold with translucent brown and black paint.

The paint medium appears to be oil, but has not been analysed. Examination of the surface with a microscope shows that the blue used for the sky, the water and for clothing appears to be azurite (figs 2, 4). Red lake mixed with white was used for the legs of the sheep shearer. Red lake with an opaque red, probably vermilion and possibly with red lead, was used for the legs of the man with a white bird (figs 5, 6). [page 927] [page 928] The greens are mixtures of lead tin yellow with verdigris of large particle size, to which a verdigris glaze has been applied which now appears brown but was probably originally green. The more distant green landscape is painted with a mixture of blue and yellow pigments. The paint of the tops of the growth being cut in the field consists of lead‐tin yellow, white and possibly some yellow earth. Lead white, black and earth pigments have also been used.

Subject

The scene represented is a river with distant mountains to the left and a town on the right‐hand bank; in the foreground a variety of rural activities are undertaken by people of different social classes. Near the centre and seen from the rear is a man in a light‐coloured, broad‐brimmed plumed hat and brown coat seated on a white horse, who holds two hawks or other birds of prey on his extended left arm (fig. 8). His dog, its coat partly clipped, stands on the left. On the far left a man and woman ride by, both seated on a brown horse; the woman, seated side‐saddle in a blue dress and white head‐covering, holds a bird of prey on her left wrist. On the right of the composition are two riders galloping, engaged in the same pursuit: the man on the left rides a brown horse and holds his bird of prey on his right arm, while his companion further to the right rides a white horse and raises his left arm in the air, possibly holding a whip or a lure to attract his hawk to return. Both men wear white hats with brown plumes, white tunics with slashed sleeves, white trousers and long black boots.

In the foreground on the left a man wearing a white, flat‐brimmed hat, a blue tunic, red hose and brown boots sits under a tree, shearing a sheep which lies across his legs; the curls of the shorn fleece are visible to the right (figs 9, 10, 15). The man seems to be based on a woodcut by Sebald Beham (1500–1550) of about 1529–30 which represents the zodiac month of Cancer, late May to June (fig. 16).³ In the lower‐left hand corner the rest of the flock, some of which are black, are serenaded by a man playing the bagpipes. Behind them a man is cutting a field with a long‐handled scythe of the type used to cut grass (fig. 12).⁴ The yellow growth he is mowing has highlighted tops, possibly intended to represent the ears typical of wheat; however since a sickle rather than a scythe was generally used for harvesting in this period the growth may represent a hayfield rather than a field of wheat, as its relatively low height might also suggest. A brownish‐grey jug for his refreshment stands to his right. A second man in a plumed hat walks in front of the partially cut field, also carrying a scythe (figs 13, 17).⁵ Near them, to the right of the tree, close to the water, are men who appear to be beaters, making the ducks fly up for the hunters. In front is a man in a white tunic with a purse suspended from it and wearing red hose (fig. 5), who bends down with a sack held over a brown bird and a white goose or swan (fig. 6), confronted by a barking dog to the right (fig. 11). There are several ducks swimming on the water and one, to the right, rising up out of it. The greenery on the far bank casts reflections in the water. In the sky can be seen a number of birds, perhaps birds of prey (fig. 4). In the distance is a bridge connecting the bank on which the activities take place with the settlement opposite: there are two towers near the bridge, evidently representing a town gate, and a building with a tall spire towards the right, presumably a church. The town may be intended to represent Landshut on the river Isar, where Wertinger lived and worked. The tall spire may be that of St Martin’s church (also seen in a painting of a tournament at Landshut (fig. 19) ) .

In the centre foreground a young woman in a white dress with a square neckline over a blue skirt carries a platter of round whitish‐yellow objects on her head, perhaps bread rolls (fig. 14).⁶ A man follows her, holding a basket in his right hand and a small bundle on a stick. On the far right, nearest to the viewer, is a man in a brown hat and boots with a large bundle over his shoulder and what may be a sword hanging from his belt: he is pointing upwards but the composition ends at this point: brown fabric with vertical folds and horizontal ones at the lower edge could indicate a sack loaded [page 931]onto the cart or conceivably the figure of a woman from the knees down; parts of the wheels and handles of the cart are also shown. The top of the composition is framed by gilded decoration in the form of an arch with decorated spandrels and a central pendant. Along the bottom are traces of white paint, possibly an inscription panel that has been cut off.

Wertinger’s scenes of rural life evoke the tasks and pursuits carried out in the countryside in the warmest weather of the year. These were frequently represented in this period following the conventions of the calendar tradition, according to which the different months of the year were represented by typical occupations, both agricultural activity carried out by farm labourers and leisure pursuits followed by the prosperous. Similar representations of the Labours or Occupations of the Months can be seen in manuscript illumination (notably in the calendars of Books of Hours), and in wall painting, tapestry, glass painting and woodcuts, in both northern and southern Europe during the Middle Ages and onwards into the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; the conventions for representing particular months can be traced back to antiquity.⁷ Scenes showing agricultural tasks appropriate to particular times of year were often alternated or contrasted with scenes of aristocratic leisure: peasants might be shown shearing sheep while their social superiors went boating or picnicking in the summer months, or in winter feasted indoors while work went on outside. The development of scenes beyond those of the traditional calendar and including more depictions of noble leisure was a feature of the work of the Netherlandish illuminator Simon Bening (1483/4–1561) in the early sixteenth century.⁸ A specifically German form of manuscript calendar cycle depicts only different types of hunting for the different months of the year.⁹

The principal activities shown in NG 6568 – haymaking, shearing sheep, fishing and riding out with hawks – were all traditionally represented in the summer months in calendar cycles of the Occupations of the Months. Although calendar cycles were very often based on the divisions of the year into twelve zodiacal months, rather than the twelve months of the modern calendar, sheep shearing, haymaking and harvesting were all associated with the summer months. The times of the year at which certain tasks were undertaken and so depicted might vary according to the exigencies of the European climate: the further south, the earlier tasks such as haymaking or harvesting would take place.¹⁰ For instance, sheep shearing is traditionally found in June in cycles from northern Europe, especially in the Low Countries and Germany, although it also occurs in the depiction of the month of July alongside harvesting in the famous fifteenth‐century illuminated calendar of the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, whereas haymaking alone is shown in the Très Riches Heures as the activity for June.¹¹ Sheep shearing is found along with the sign of the zodiac Cancer (late May to late June) in the woodcut series by Sebald Beham of around 1529–30 based on that of 1527 (fig. 16) which Wertinger [page 932] appears to have known, as well as in woodcuts by the Master FB and Jost Amman (1539–1591).¹² Haymaking is shown as the activity for July in seven examples of illuminated calendars from the workshop of the Netherlandish artist Simon Bening as well as in Hans Bocksberger the Elder’s (1510–1561) lunette for July on the ceiling of the Landshut ducal residence where Wertinger was employed (fig. 18), but is also sometimes shown in the work of other artists in June.¹³ Fishing and hawking typically occur in representations of July.¹⁴ The activities seen in NG 6568 appear to encompass more than those shown in a single month in a typical depiction from a calendar cycle but might be most readily associated with the month of July.

NG 6568, The Nuremberg Group and Wertinger’s other Depictions of the Months

NG 6568 is one of around twenty small paintings in differing formats associated with Wertinger which represent outdoor activities in landscape settings: some of these have been thought to represent the months of the year, others the seasons. Seven paintings which appear to be individual scenes from a single cycle of Occupations of the Months are preserved in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg. Made from separate panels of differing woods (including alder) and panel construction and differing origins, each measures approximately 32 × 40 cm, and they share similar (but not identical) gilded spandrels with a central pendant motif; they have been identified as representing March, May, June (fig. 20), July (fig. 21), August, September and December.¹⁵ Further paintings may be part of the same series: two paintings in a private collection in Spain identified as January and November, and a third in a private collection in Germany previously on loan to the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg, identified as February (formerly thought to be March); these three have gilded decoration resembling those of the Nuremberg series.¹⁶ A painting of a tournament now at Landshut, which includes representations of Ludwig X of Bavaria (1495–1545) and his brother Wilhelm IV (1493–1550), is also thought to be part of this group and may alternatively represent February (fig. 19).¹⁷ A twelfth fragmentary painting may represent June (see Versions).¹⁸

NG 6568 shares some physical characteristics with the paintings at Nuremberg and those associated with them – they are similar in width and in the form of panel used in the Nuremberg group – but clearly differs in size and proportions and in the gilded decoration. Nor do any of that group [page 933] feature truncated elements of the type shown in NG 6568. Moreover NG 6568 shows activities combined in a single painting which are represented in separate panels in the Nuremberg group: sheep shearing, haymaking and hunting with falcons.¹⁹ Although, as suggested above, the painting might represent the month of July, it might more plausibly represent the activities of the summer months.

Further Paintings of Outdoor Activities

Wertinger’s National Gallery painting shares similar characteristics with a further group of paintings associated with the artist which also represent types of activities in outdoor settings. They are close in size and proportions and some have similar gilded decoration, but none has precisely the type of gilded decoration seen in NG 6568. The [page 934] differences between them indicate that they are not part of a single series or coherent group. The paintings are: a wintry scene of fox and deer hunting with people on the ice in the background (fig. 22), and a depiction of a bathhouse and butcher’s shop or pig slaughterhouse (fig. 23), both in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum Nuremberg;²⁰ a painting in the Hermitage, Saint Petersburg, showing village festivities and a market (fig. 24);²¹ one in the Brooklyn Museum, depicting a boar hunt (fig. 25);²² a picture in a private collection of a deerhunt in Bologna;²³ a painting of a bathing scene in the Museen der Stadt, Nuremberg (fig. 26);²⁴ and a painting of a bath house, at one time on the Munich art market.²⁵ Another painting of similar size formerly with Colnaghi (fig. 27) depicts sheep shearing (see Versions, above).

The Bologna, Brooklyn (fig. 25) and Saint Petersburg (fig. 26) pictures share gilded spandrels and a composition marked by a central tree. Although the first two have been cut at the top, the Brooklyn painting bears no indication it ever had the central decorative motif visible in NG 6568, and the placing of the tree in the Hermitage picture and possibly also in the painting at Bologna would seem to exclude the presence of the motif in the other two cases. The winter hunting scene at Nuremberg (fig. 22) has a different kind of gilded decorative motif at the top, which is very similar to the painting of similar size depicting sheep shearing formerly with Colnaghi (fig. 27), though the motifs are not absolutely identical, differing in the manner of the turning of the terminal of the volutes. The Nuremberg bathhouse scene has yet another format, closer to NG 6568, though the panel is of a different construction.²⁶

These paintings represent types of activities associated with different times of year which are much more varied than those shown traditionally in the Occupations of the [page 935] [page 936] Months, and in which leisure rather than labour is often to the fore. Several make references to the calendar tradition of the Occupations of the Months in their inclusion in the background of scenes with a different, more leisured emphasis, similar to those by Bening referred to above.²⁷ Some scholars have argued that Wertinger represented the four seasons in these paintings, although there is no agreement as to which seasons might be shown.²⁸ Moreover, the four seasons as a pictorial subject was not well established at this period. In the later sixteenth century Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s engraved representation of Summer included June, July and August, while his paintings appear to have each shown two months, with June and July represented as a haymaking scene.²⁹ Conceivably, Wertinger’s composition might also represent these two summer months, June and July, but more probably it is a much less programmatic representation of activities carried out across the summer months, which draws on the calendar tradition.³⁰

Although the differences in the types of decorative motifs framing or dividing this second group of paintings suggest they are not part of a single series, none shares the form of gilded decoration seen in NG 6568. It is notable however that the Nuremberg painting of a bathhouse and butcher’s shop (fig. 23) includes a figure in the foreground on the right‐hand side who is pointing to the scene but turning to an unseen figure beyond the composition. This is similar to the manner in which the figure on the cart on the right of NG 6568 extends beyond the edge of the picture (although as previously mentioned the panel is of different construction in both paintings, that of NG 6568 resembling others of those in Nuremberg). The truncated scene in NG 6568 implies that a matching panel which would have completed the image is missing, and suggests it was part of a decorative scheme, probably set into the panelling of a room. NG 6568 must have been paired with a painting that completed it on the right‐hand side, perhaps a harvest scene, moving the subject onwards in the cycle of the year.

Original Function, Location and Patron

Duke Ludwig X of Bavaria made extensive refurbishments to his residence of Castle Trausnitz in Landshut from 1516 onwards, and very large payments are recorded to Wertinger for his work there (see biography, p. 925). The subject matter of the Occupations of the Months was one favoured by the Bavarian rulers for the decoration of their residences: the Apollo room in the Stadtresidenz Landshut, built in 1536–43 after Wertinger’s death, displays depictions of the Occupations of the Months by Hans Bocksberger the Elder (fig. 18) including tournament and bathhouse scenes.³¹

Löcher identified Wertinger’s patron Duke Ludwig X of Bavaria as a figure in the painting at Nuremberg representing the month of May and suggested that he commissioned all of Wertinger’s small decorative scenes, while Hess observed that the same man was present in many of Wertinger’s panels, and noted his resemblance to Ludwig in his portrait of 1516.³² Ludwig also appears to be shown in a jousting scene taking place in the market square at Landshut, the location of his castle of Trausnitz.³³ Given the courtly subject of the painting, it is entirely plausible that Ludwig X is shown as one of the two men prominent in the foreground; the other is probably his elder brother Wilhelm IV, ruler of Bavaria. If NG 6568 shows Landshut it was most likely painted for Ludwig, too. Its Spanish provenance, like the other similar paintings which may have reached Spain through dynastic connections with Bavaria, also suggests that it might originate with Ludwig X.³⁴

There is no clear evidence to confirm to what form of decorative scheme NG 6568 or other panels by Wertinger might have belonged. Löcher and others have suggested that the series of Months in Nuremberg may have formed part of a single scheme along with the slightly less tall paintings he associated with the seasons, such as NG 6568, positing that some of the subjects in the Months would have been treated more extensively in the smaller panels in a manner which can be paralleled in manuscript illumination with its systems of marginal embellishment of the main image; this [page 937]might have involved each larger, squarer Month being paired with two other panels, in tiers, one above the other.³⁵ Clarke‐Ingersoll has suggested instead that the panels probably hung in two separate rooms in the residence, with some arranged horizontally around a reception space, depicting Ludwig enacting his role as steward of the people.³⁶

According to Clarke‐Ingersoll, Wertinger’s Months served as images of good government, a pictorial confirmation of the duchy’s prosperity and Ludwig’s obligation to be good ruler: they would have presented visitors with idealised images of Ludwig’s success in this sphere, offering views of peace and prosperity as though seen from the windows of his residence.³⁷ Hess has drawn attention to the manner in which Wertinger's images can be related to the celebration of the German landscape by contemporary German humanists: to that end his paintings combine both close observation of daily life and idealisation.³⁸

It is difficult to be certain whether all the surviving paintings should be considered as part of the same original scheme, plausibly intended for Castle Trausnitz, and impossible to propose an accurate reconstruction; indeed the repetitions and overlaps in subject matter, as well as the differences in decorative treatments among the group of smaller pictures, including NG 6568, suggest that at least some of these paintings may, rather, have been created for different patrons, and for schemes in different rooms. There may have been a market for these scenes beyond the Bavarian court.³⁹ However, the Spanish provenance of NG 6568, along with that of other similar works by Wertinger (see Provenance), strongly suggests it was made for Ludwig X or another member of the Bavarian ruling family.

Attribution and Date

According to an inscription on the nineteenth‐century‐style frame used until 1997, NG 6568 was formerly thought to be by Lucas Cranach. NG 6568 is in fact extremely similar, in the manner of its painting as well as in the construction of its panel and the style of underdrawing, to other paintings such as the Nuremberg Months series which are generally accepted as Wertinger’s on the basis of comparison with landscapes in his signed works, notably that of Maria Jacobaea von Baden, Duchess of Bavaria, dated 1526 (Munich, Alte Pinakothek).⁴⁰ The thin layer of paint with the underdrawing showing through in NG 6568 is characteristic not only of other seasonal paintings but also of works such as the signed portrait in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, of Christoph von Laiming in his 59th Year of 1517.⁴¹ The man on a horse seen from the rear in the centre of the picture is very similar when reversed to the man in the painting at Nuremberg currently identified as Winter (fig. 22). The construction of NG 6568 is similar to that of several of the Months in Nuremberg, which share a very narrow central board, and suggests that even if not part of the same series, their supports were ordered from the same panel maker. The high quality of NG 6568 is particularly noticeable in the elegance of the details of the figures and in the beauty of the landscape scene dominating the background.

The Nuremberg paintings of the Months can be dated to around 1530: that date is determined not only by Wertinger’s death in 1533, but by the use of woodcuts of the Months by Sebald Beham, first published in 1527 without the signs of the zodiac and adapted to include them in 1529–30: the milkmaid in April is used for the Nuremberg May and the picnickers in August are the model for those in the Nuremberg July; similarly, the man shearing sheep in NG 6568 seems to be based on the Beham woodcut for June (fig. 16).⁴² NG 6568 does not differ significantly in style from the Nuremberg paintings and is therefore also likely to date from around 1530, or slightly before.

Select Bibliography

National Gallery Report, April 1997–March 1998, pp. 10–11; [Foister], ‘Hans Wertinger’s Summer’, exhibition leaflet, 1999; Hess, Mack and Küffner 2008; Clarke‐Ingersoll 2014.

Notes