Museum Quality Painting “Martin Luther at Magdeburg” by Wilhelm Lindenschmit

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WILHELM LINDENSCHMIT THE YOUNGER
German, 1829-1895

"Martin Luther Taken by His Parents to the School of the Gray Friars at … Read more WILHELM LINDENSCHMIT THE YOUNGER
German, 1829-1895

"Martin Luther Taken by His Parents to the School of the Gray Friars at Magdeburg"

Oil on canvas, signed within the architecture beneath the image of the Madonna and Child "W. LINDENSCHMIT. FECIT. MIRABL. CAR. SOL. ANIMAR."
Munich, circa 1890

44 1/2" H x 1 1/2" D x 59 3/4" W [frame]
36" H x 51 1/2" W [canvas]

Wilhelm Lindenschmit the Younger was born in Munich on June 20, 1829 and studied at the academies in Munich and Frankfurt before continuing his training in Antwerp. During the 1870s he turned repeatedly to subjects associated with Martin Luther and the Reformation. Luther became a particularly important subject for the artist. Henrike Holsing describes it as his “favorite field” and considers several of his Luther paintings among the finest works of the genre. Writing during Lindenschmit’s lifetime, S. G. W. Benjamin similarly observed that his scenes from Luther’s life were “marked by singular power” and placed him among the foremost living artists of Germany.

Lindenschmit was appointed professor of history painting at the Munich Academy in 1875, succeeding Arthur von Ramberg. He became a member of the Berlin Academy in 1874 and the Vienna Academy in 1888. He received a gold medal at the Berlin exhibition of 1870 and a second place medal at the Munich exhibition of 1888. He died in Munich on June 8, 1895.

The present painting depicts the traditional account of the young Martin Luther being brought by his parents to school in Magdeburg in 1497. Lindenschmit places the episode within an expansive Romanesque cloister, carefully developing the architectural setting as an integral part of the narrative. Two friars approach through the central passage while Luther and his family stand beyond them. At left, a group of schoolboys crowd into the open arcade and watch the arrival with animated curiosity. Luther stands near the center of the composition, more restrained and introspective than the figures around him.
The numerous subsidiary figures are individually characterized, with their expressions and gestures giving the scene much of its narrative complexity. Luther’s father has removed his hat and gestures toward his son, while the younger children react to the monks and unfamiliar surroundings. Above the family is a devotional image of the Madonna and Child. Immediately beneath it, Lindenschmit incorporated his signature into the painted stone architecture, apparently followed by the inscription “MIRABL CAR SOL ANIMAR,” possibly an abbreviated form of Mirabilis caritas, solamen animarum, or “Admirable love, consolation of souls.” On the right wall, a large partial image of the Corpus Christi overlooks the scene.

The subject occupied Lindenschmit repeatedly. Holsing records a painting exhibited at the Munich Kunstverein in 1876, works dated 1877 and 1893 in the artist’s estate catalogue, and versions dated 1880 and 1893 in a handwritten biography of the artist compiled by his son Wilhelm. She consequently concludes that Lindenschmit appears to have painted the subject at least four times, in 1876, 1877, 1880 and 1893. A color sketch dated 1877 is preserved in the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus in Munich, together with evidence of additional preparatory studies in charcoal and pen and ink.
Holsing was able to identify two distinct treatments of the subject through contemporary reproductions. In the first, the episode takes place within a dark monastery interior. Luther’s family brings a basket of provisions that is eagerly inspected by one of the monks, while the young Luther regards the scene with visible resistance. Holsing interprets the composition as carrying a pointed anticlerical undertone, suggesting an early encounter between Luther and the clerical behavior he would later oppose.

The second treatment is the compositional type represented by the present painting. Here the setting has become a bright Romanesque cloister. The Luther family enters through an open doorway in the background while two monks approach from the inner quadrangle. A group of boys gathers at the opening toward the garden. The atmosphere is markedly less confrontational. Luther’s father presents his son to the monks and the young Luther stands with greater composure, his earlier defiance replaced by a quieter and more psychologically reserved presence.

Holsing describes the 1877 Lenbachhaus sketch as an intermediate stage between these two treatments. Its arrangement is already substantially closer to the cloister composition, with the open arcade at left, the schoolboys and the approaching monks, while still retaining elements of the earlier version. She tentatively proposes that the darker interior painting may have been the work exhibited in 1876, followed by the 1877 sketch, and that the more conciliatory cloister composition may correspond to a version of either 1880 or 1893. She is careful, however, to state that this chronology remains speculative.

The later composition was reproduced in Die Kunst für Alle in 1895 and was exhibited during the year of Lindenschmit’s death at the annual exhibition of the Munich Artists’ Association. Its development from the earlier treatment illustrates Lindenschmit’s characteristic approach to history painting. Rather than relying upon a single dramatic gesture, he constructed the episode through architecture, subsidiary figures, individual expressions and small exchanges between the participants. Holsing particularly emphasizes this aspect of his work, noting his preference for the quieter territory of historical genre painting and for psychologically observed episodes from Luther’s formative life.

The historical title reflects nineteenth century Luther scholarship. Luther did attend school in Magdeburg in 1497 and later recalled his association there with the so called Nullbrüder, or Gray Brothers. Lindenschmit appears to have followed the widespread nineteenth century identification of these men as Franciscan friars. Holsing notes that Friedrich Wiggert had already challenged this interpretation in 1851. More recent scholarship associates the community with the Brethren of the Common Life, whose members lived communally without formal vows and supported themselves through work rather than begging.

This discrepancy introduces an interesting historical dimension to Lindenschmit’s conception of the scene. In the earlier version, he appears to use the monastery setting to foreshadow Luther’s later criticism of clerical institutions. The actual brotherhood with whom Luther lived, however, practiced a comparatively reformist form of religious life. As Holsing observes through the work of Heinrich Bornkamm, their late medieval devotional culture remained in Luther’s memory as one of the purest expressions of Catholic religious life he had encountered.

The painting also has a documented American institutional history. Francis Randall Appleton presented it to Phillips Academy in Andover in May 1904. This provenance is preserved by the presentation plaque remaining on the frame and was recorded when the painting subsequently appeared at auction.

References
1. Clement, Clara Erskine, and Laurence Hutton. Artists of the Nineteenth Century and Their Works: Containing Two Thousand and Fifty Biographical Sketches. Boston: Houghton, Osgood and Company, 1879.
2. Holsing, Henrike. Luther: Gottesmann und Nationalheld. Sein Image in der deutschen Historienmalerei des 19. Jahrhunderts. Ph.D. dissertation, Universität zu Köln, 2004, pp. 316 to 318.
3. Benezit Dictionary of Artists. Vol. VIII. Paris: Gründ, 2006, p. 1071.
4. Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich. Luthers Eintritt in die Klosterschule, 1877, oil on canvas, 131.7 x 181.5 cm, accession no. G 5968.

Condition: Relined. Fine original condition. Cleaned and sealed in traditional Dammar varnish. Surface presents with craquelure throughout along with trace speckling on very close examination of the surface. Under UV shows minimal inpainting, mostly isolated to the extreme edges of the frame as well as the lower edge into the floor. Period frame, probably original to the work with old discolored gold painted finish, minor losses and crackling. Ready to place.

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