PROVENANCE
Prints and a Few Drawings from Great Collections of the Past
  1. Master MR, Christ on the Cross
  2. Dürer, St. Bartholomew
  3. Dürer, Christ Before Caiaphas
  4. Raimondi, Philosophy
  5. Raimondi, Façade with Caryatids
  6. Beham, Job Conversing
  7. Beham, Satyr Sounding a Horn
  8. Beham, Peasant Couple Walking
  9. Caraglio, Martyrdom of St. Paul
  10. Aldegrever, Standard Bearer
  11. Pencz, Feeding the Hungry
  12. Pencz, Artemisia Preparing
  13. Falconetto, Tomb Surmounted
  14. Claesz, St. Peter Seated
  15. Treu, Noble Dancers
  16. Master FP, Hercules Killing
  17. Brun, February
  18. Solis, Arithmetria
  19. de Bruyn, The Circumcision
  20. Sadeler, Virgin and Child
  21. Goltzius, A Young Man
  22. Matham, The Planets
  23. Brizio, Extensive Landscape
  24. van de Velde, Fête Villageoise
  25. van de Velde, Backgammon
  26. van Uyttenbroek, Tobias
  27. van Uyttenbroek, Bacchus
  28. Rembrandt, The Small Lion Hunt
  29. Hollar, Woman with Headdress
  30. Saftleven, Dutch Peasant
  31. Ostade, Bust of a Peasant
  32. Stoop, A Grazing Horse
  33. Fyt, Set of Animals
  34. Bega, The Three Drinkers
  35. Anonymous, Landscape
  36. Nanteuil, Charles Benoise
  37. Nanteuil, Cardinal Mazarin
  38. Nanteuil, Pierre Seguier
  39. van Vliet, St. Jerome Sitting
  40. Cossin, Ornament Design
  41. Sirani, St. Eustace
  42. Somer, Hagar and Ishmael
  43. Daullé, La Muse Clio
  44. Tiepolo, The Holy Family
  45. MacArdell, Hannah, Mrs. Horneck
  46. Laurie, Elizabeth, Dutchess
  47. Denon, Village Scene
  48. Charlet, Les Français
  49. Pieraccini, Holy Family
  50. Daumier, Y n’y a rien comm’
  51. Daubigny, Les Ruines du Chateau
  52. Daubigny, Lever de Lune
  53. Meryon, Le Petit Pont
  54. Rops, La Poupée du Satyre
  55. Whistler, Old Hungerford Bridge
  56. Legros, Un Coin de Rivière
  57. Buhot, Frontispice
  58. Forain, La Rencontre
  59. Pennell, Hampton Court Palace
  60. Delâtre, Silhouette de Femme

1. Master MR
(fl. ca. 1500)
Christ on the Cross with Saints Catherine, Dominic and Jerome

(click on image to print)
Master MR, Christ on the Cross

Christ on the Cross with Saints Catherine, Dominic and Jerome

Other Images:

Engraving, ca. 1500, 150 x 101 mm., Nagler Monogrammisten 2103-3. Fine impression on early laid paper with margins of about 20 mm. outside the platemark all around. The saints are identified within the image with engraved early variants of their names. Master MR is believed to have worked in southern Germany. Nagler lists an impression in the imperial collection in Vienna (now, presumably in the Nationalbibliothek), but the print does not appear to be in either the British Museum or the Bibliothèque Nationale collections, and we have searched many sale catalogs of the great European collections without finding another. One might surmise that it is exceptionally rare.

Provenance:
Ducs d’Arenberg (Lugt 567). The Dukes of Arenberg have been, since the sixteenth century, patrons of the arts in Belgium. The family collection, constantly enriched by new purchases, comprised paintings, tapestries, sculpture, drawings, objets d’art and, not least, prints, every group containing masterpieces of the greatest rarity. In 1902, a selection of prints was sold at auction in London, amounting to some 40,000 items, sold mostly in lots, and including works by Dürer, Rembrandt, Lucas van Leyden, Callot, Hollar, Beham and van Dyck. Despite this sale, the remaining collection was still among the largest and most admirable in Europe. It contained rare engravings by early German and Flemish masters, Schongauers, Meckenems Dürers, Rembrandts and Behams and extended into works of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. With World War I, the collection essentially went underground, stored in a variety of locations, but after the war, and up to 1955, large quantities of prints, drawings and paintings were sold both publicly and privately. The Arenberg stamp on the back of a print has come to be known as an assurance of the highest quality

V. Pael (not in L.). The verso of the engraving also bears an ink notation “V. Pael no. 545.” Nothing is known of this collector, if, in fact, the notation is a collector’s mark.