Christus u die Ehebreckerin (Christ and the Adulteress)

Georg Pencz

This engraving is from a group discovered tucked into a 19th century book of Durer's prints, all in old mats, matted the same way. One of the works had the stamp of the "Biblioteque de l'Academie des Beaux-Arts" in the upper left corner of the sheet on the verso (K.AKA.D), Lugt 1627. A check with the current curators resulted in the following response:

"Thank you so much for sending us the photographs and remarks on the Pencz engravings which were formerly part of the Graphic Collection. My dear colleague Konstantin Ferihumer (cc), who is in charge of the provenance research, assumes that, according to the stamp „Als Doubletten veräußert k.k. Akad. Wien“ is is likeable that the engravings were sorted out before 1918 (with the end of the k.k. Monarchy the Academy of Fine Arts also changed its signature stamp).

We have also consulted some archival material which harks back to the 1870´s when for the first time doublets were deliberately sold in a larger scale. (I myself recently came across a similar case when I did some research on our Rembrandt engravings.) However, until now and with only a quick digital research, we could not find any hints on Pencz. It is doubtful that delving into the archive will deliver more than the fact that doublets have indeed been deacessioned, a quite common practise in the late 19th Century, especially under director Carl von Lützow.

Mr. F. and I will nevertheless check whether the stamp is also to be found on the two engravings DG-1.032 and 1.049 >(recently stored in the Albertina depot due to renovation works). The inventory of the Graphic Collection gives no such hint. Also, the indices oft he University Archive (UAAbKW) which we traced back until the early 1870´s did not deliver one match.

As far as we can see, there are no specific reasons for suspicion related to the more „problematic“ periods after 1918. Should we find out more, we will surely keep you informed. For the moment, please do accept our gratidude for signalling the objects. We do appreciate your help very much.