German Baroque drawings by Nicolas Schwed

18/11/23 - Art market - Paris - From now until December 7, Nicolas Schwed is presenting a museum-level exhibition of German Baroque drawings in the premises he shares with Étienne Bréton at 346, rue Saint-Honoré. And it’s likely that none of these works will be acquired by a French museum. The Louvre seems to have no interest in the subject, and the Department of Graphic Arts has confirmed to the dealer that it is not interested in acquiring works by artists many of whom are absent from its collection and rare in our country.
The exhibition is accompanied by a well-documented catalog entirely in English, with a long essay explaining why historiography is still poor on this period of German art, long neglected because it was considered more subject to foreign influences.

1. Daniel Lindtmayer (1552-1607)
The Crowning of the Virgin
with Angels Musicians
Pen and gray ink, gray wash - 40.6 x 31.1 cm
Nicolas Schwed
Photo: OMD Sarl

See the image in its page

2. Jost Amman (1539-1591)
The Return of Jephtah
Pen and black ink - 20.3 x 13.5 cm
Nicolas Schwed
Photo: OMD Sarl

See the image in its page

The 50 drawings date mainly from the 17th and 18th centuries, but the selection begins a little earlier, before the Baroque, with a few 16th-century sheets, including a work by Daniel Lindtmayer (ill. 1), a preparatory carton for a stained glass window, whose dense, Mannerist composition is not so far removed from the Baroque. Despite the extremely high quality of this drawing, it’s easy to understand how little these artists are known when you see that the Swiss artist Daniel Lindtmayer doesn’t even have his own Wikipedia entry, even in German, since only the Lindtmayer family, who specialize in stained glass, have a collective page on the English Wikipedia [see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindtmayer]!
Also from the 16th century, and also preparatory to a stained glass window, is a sheet by Jost Amman (ill. 2), another Swiss artist…