The French tradition ministry has intervened on the final minute to dam the sale of a drawing just lately recognized as by the German Renaissance grasp Hans Baldung Grien. It was on account of be offered by the public sale home Beaussant Lefèvre on the Drouot Paris venue on 23 March.
The bust-length portrait of a lady, measuring simply 15.7cm by 10.4cm, carried a pre-sale estimate of €1.5m to €3m. The ministry’s decree, printed on 21 March, declared it to be a nationwide treasure, unable to go away France for 30 months.
Drawings by Baldung, extensively thought to be Dürer’s most gifted protégé, are extraordinarily uncommon, numbering round 250. The final to look at public sale was offered in 2007 for greater than $3.7m, at Christie’s in New York. The brand new discovery is the one silverpoint portrait nonetheless in non-public arms, in keeping with the Beaussant Lefèvre auctioneer Arthur de Moras.
Drawn in silverpoint on bone powder-primed paper, signed with a monogram of the artist and dated 1517, it depicts a lady wearing bonnet, chinstrap and high-necked gown. An inscription identifies the sitter as Susanna Pfeffinger, the spouse of a rich burgher of Strasbourg, the place Baldung lived and labored for many of his life.
Owned by descendants of the Pfeffinger household for the previous 500 years, the drawing was found final 12 months by De Moras whereas getting ready a probate stock. It was attributed to Baldung by Patrick de Bayser, a number one French authority on Previous Grasp drawings, who known as it crucial work offered to him for authentication up to now ten years.
Though it featured in {a photograph} printed in a historical past of Strasbourg in 1981, no person knew what it was, De Bayser tells The Artwork Newspaper. “In truth, the household thought it is likely to be by [the famed portraitist Hans] Holbein.”
“I stated it may’t be a Holbein, that’s inconceivable. I instantly considered Baldung, after the 2019 exhibition,” De Bayser says, referencing a serious monographic present titled Hans Baldung Grien: Sacred/Profane, on the Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe in Germany.
The attribution to Baldung, primarily based on technical virtuosity, the artist’s monogram and, not least, household connections between artist and sitter, has been validated by Christof Metzger, the chief curator of graphic arts on the Albertina, Vienna, and Dorit Schäfer, the top of prints and drawings on the Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe. The drawing in all probability got here from the identical sketchbook as a widely known collection held within the Karlsruhe museum, Metzger tells The Artwork Newspaper, describing the discover as “more-or-less a as soon as in a lifetime discovery”.
An export licence software was filed in November 2025, and rejected this week by the French authorities. This places in place a 30-month export block that permits potential French patrons time to boost funds to maintain It within the nation.
Explaining its ruling, the tradition ministry cited the opinion of its Advisory Committee on Nationwide Treasures, which famous that solely 12 silverpoint portraits by Baldung are presently recognized, none of them in French public collections and that “consequently, this can be a work of main historic and inventive curiosity for the nationwide heritage”.
“The latest reappearance of this feminine portrait, of nice rarity in Baldung’s oeuvre and virtuoso silverpoint execution, anchored in Alsace by its uninterrupted provenance in the identical Strasbourg household, (is) one of many final alternatives for such a piece to hitch a French public assortment,” the ministry ruling acknowledged.
In response, Beaussant Lefèvre has suspended the sale. “The classification of this drawing as a nationwide treasure, solely 48 hours earlier than the deliberate public public sale … has compromised the potential of organising a sale in regular circumstances, regardless of sturdy curiosity from a number of worldwide establishments and collectors,” the public sale home stated in an announcement. The distributors will now search to barter a personal sale to a French purchaser, De Moras provides.
