The ''Darmstadt Madonna'' (also known as the ''Madonna of Jakob Meyer zum Hasen'') is an oil painting by

Hans Holbein the Younger Hans Holbein the Younger ( , ; german: Hans Holbein der Jüngere; – between 7 October and 29 November 1543) was a Germans, German-Swiss people, Swiss painter and printmaker who worked in a Northern Renaissance style, and is considered o ...

. Completed in 1526 in Basel, the work shows the Bürgermeister of Basel

Jakob Meyer zum Hasen Jakob Meyer zum Hasen (1482 in Basel – 1531 in Freiburg im Breisgau) was the bürgermeister of the city of Basel from 1516 to 1521. A money changer by profession, he was the first bürgermeister of Basel to be a tradesman, belonging to a gui ...

, his first wife (who had died earlier), his current wife, and his daughter grouped around the Madonna and infant Jesus. The meaning of the two other male figures on the left side (the Madonna's right) is, like the overall iconography of the image, not entirely clear. Franny Moyle writes that the man on the Madonna's right is Meyer, and " e boy and baby may be a presentation of Meyer's two deceased sons...." The image testified to the resolutely Catholic faith of the Bürgermeister, who actively opposed the Reformation. Holbein's Darmstadt Madonna was influenced by Italian Renaissance religious painting; Franny Moyle writes that it was influenced by Andrea Mantegna's 1496

Madonna della Vittoria The ''Madonna della Vittoria'' is a painting by the Italian Renaissance painter Andrea Mantegna; the painting was executed in 1496. History On 6 July 1495 the French army of Charles VIII of France, retreating from Italy after the French Invasio ...

, and that the two paintings' "perspectival approach ... is almost identical." The Darmstadt Madonna may also contain elements of Netherlandish portrait painting. Earlier located in

Darmstadt Darmstadt () is a city in the States of Germany, state of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Frankfurt Rhine Main Area, Rhine-Main-Area (Frankfurt Metropolitan Region). Darmstadt has around 160,000 inhabitants, making it th ...

, hence its title, the work was on loan to the Städelschen Kunstinstitut in Frankfurt am Main from 2004 to 2011. In 2012, the painting was put on display in the Johanniterkirche in

Schwäbisch Hall Schwäbisch Hall (; "Swabian Hall"; from 1802 until 1934 and colloquially: ''Hall'' ) is a city in the German state of Baden-Württemberg located in the valley of the Kocher river, the longest tributary (together with its headwater Lein) of the ...

as part of the permanent exhibition of the Old Masters in the Würth Collection.

References

All of the following texts are in German: * ''Hans Holbeins Madonna im Städel. Der Bürgermeister, sein Maler und seine Familie''. Exhibit Catalog, Petersberg 2004, . * Oskar Bätschmann, Pascal Griener: ''Hans Holbein d. J. Die Darmstädter Madonna. Original gegen Fälschung''. Fischer, Frankfurt 1998. * Christl Auge: ''Zur Deutung der Darmstädter Madonna''. Lang, Frankfurt am Main 1993. *

Günther Grundmann Günther Grundmann (10 April 1892 – 19 June 1976) was a German art historian, museum curator and monument preservator. Life Born in Jelenia Góra, Krkonoše Mountains, Province of Silesia, after Abitur in his hometown in 1912, Grundmann stu ...

: ''Die Darmstädter Madonna''. Eduard Roether, Darmstadt 1959. * Theodor Gaedertz: ''Hans Holbein der Jüngere und seine Madonna des Bürgermeisters Meyer. Mit den Abbildungen der Darmstädter und der Dresdener Madonna''. Bolhoevener, Lübeck 1872. * Gustav Theodor Fechner: ''Ueber die Aechtheitsfrage der Holbein’schen Madonna: Discussion und Acten''. Breitkopf & Härtel, Leipzig 1871. * Dr. Georg Haupt: ''Der Darmstadter Museumsstreit. Eine Verteidigungsschrift'', Jena, Diederichs 1904. {{DEFAULTSORT:Darmstadt Madonna Paintings of the Madonna and Child Paintings by Hans Holbein the Younger 1526 paintings

See also

References

Further reading