Wolfgang Huber
, Austrian, c.1485-1553
Title
Portrait of Anton HundertpfundtDate1526
MediumOil on limewood panel
Dimensions
68.6 x 47.6 cm
Signedupper left: WH 1526 [WH in monogram]
Credit LinePurchased, 1872
Object numberNGI.15
DescriptionActive in the Bavarian town of Passau, Huber was a painter, draughtsman, woodcut designer and architect. Together with Albrecht Aldorfer, he was the leading painter of the so-called Danube School, a modern term referring to a group of Bavarian and Austrian artists of the first half of the sixteenth century who placed great emphasis on the depiction of nature. Huber painted several half-length portraits in the 1520s, one of which is his portrait of Anton Hundertpfundt, who can be identified by the plaque behind him. Hundertpfundt was the Master of the Mint (Münzmeister) to Wilhelm IV, Duke of Bavaria, a post he presumably still held when he sat for Huber. It is uncertain why Hundertpfundt commissioned an artist from Passau rather than from his hometown Munich. Huber presumably visited Munich for another commission. The artist also portrayed Hundertpfundt’s wife, Margaret, in a painting now at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. An arrangement of bricks, reminiscent of a dilapidated or unfinished building, forms an unusual backdrop to this painting. Portraits like this would normally feature a neutral background or a domestic interior or landscape.
ProvenancePurchased, Christie's, London, Marquis de Blasil sale, 17 May 1872, lot 127Exhibition HistoryWinter Exhibition, Burlington House, London, 1885
Burlington Fine Arts Club, London, 1906
Centenary Exhibition, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, October - December 1964
Master European Paintings from the National Gallery of Ireland, Art Institute of Chicago, 6 June 1992 - 9 August 1992; Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 19 Septembre 1992 - 6 December 1992; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 13 January 1993 - 28 March 1993; IBM Gallery, New York, 27 April 1993 - 26 June 1993
Lines of Vision. Irish Writers at the National Gallery of Ireland, 8 October 2014 —12 April 2015
Label TextActive in the Bavarian town of Passau, Huber was, together with Albrecht Aldorfer, the leading painter of the so-called Danube School. This was a group of Bavarian and Austrian artists, active in the first half of the sixteenth century, who placed great emphasis on the depiction of nature. Huber painted several half-length portraits in the 1520s, one of which is this portrait of Anton Hundertpfundt, who can be identified by the plaque behind him. Hundertpfundt was the Master of the Mint to the Duke of Bavaria, Wilhelm IV, a post he presumably still held when he sat for Huber.