When I wrote my “Masterpiece” column for the Wall Street Journal about Adam Elsheimer’s The Flight Into Egypt, I mentioned that there’s only one painting by him in the United States. The Kimbell Art Museum owns a daytime version of the same biblical story, also called The Flight Into Egypt, painted around 1605, about five years before his magnificent nocturnal version. The Kimbell acquired the tiny work (at left), about 4 inches high, in 1994 for an undisclosed amount. It had been sold at auction by the estate of Peter Jay Sharp a few months earlier, according to the Houston Chronicle.
But John Marciari, curator of European art and head of provenance research at the San Diego Museum of Art, thinks otherwise — maybe. Marciari, who previously was a curator at the Yale University Art Gallery, believes that a painting there deserves further consideration — it may be by Elsheimer.
Yale currently labels the painting, Coronis and Apollo, “Workshop of Elsheimer” on the grounds that Elsheimer did not make copies, and there’s another Coronis and Apollo at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool. The Yale painting is not on view; it was taken down a few years ago.
But Marciari says that the Yale version was once thought to be by Elsheimer, and was labeled as such until the Liverpool version was discovered.
Art historians do not believe that Elsheimer made copies — though many other artists of the period did. So, the Yale version was downgraded.
Marciari, on the other hand, says that there’s scant evidence that Elsheimer had a workshop either.
The image above is the Liverpool version, drawn from a website. The Yale catalogue entry, with illustration, is here — and the only things that seems to be different are the color and, perhaps, the contrast. But what can one tell from web reproductions? Not that much.
So we have another situation that requires more research. And maybe a little side-by-side comparison at Yale?
Both works are on copper, as almost all of Elsheimer’s paintings are. And they’re small. They can travel, as long as care is taken.
Photo Credits: Courtesy Kimbell Art Museum (top); Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool (bottom)