About This Artwork

Attributed to Nicolaus Gerhaert von Leyden
Netherlandish, active in Germany, 1462/73

Reliquary Bust of Saint Margaret of Antioch, 1465/70

Walnut, with traces of polychromy
50.8 x 45.5 x 29.6 cm (20 x 18 x 11 5/8 in.)
Kate S. Buckingham Endowment, 1943.1001

Exhibition, Publication and Ownership Histories

Exhibition History

Minneapolis Institute of Arts, "Masterpieces of Sculpture," 2 November – 11 December 1949, cat. 23.

Karlsruhe, Badisches Landesmuseum, "Spätgotik am Oberrhein," 4 July – 5 October 1970, cat. 25.

Moscow, State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, "Decorative-Applied Art from Late Antiquity to the Late Gothic Style," 14 May - 14 July 1990, and the Hermitage Museum, Leningrad, 14 August - 14 October 1990, cat. 68.

The Art Institute of Chicago, Devotion and Splendor: Medieval Art at the Art Institute of Chicago, September 25, 2004-January 3, 2005, cat. 56.

Publication History

Émile Molinier, Collection Émile Gavet (Paris, 1894), p. 27, no. 71.

"Revue des Ventes: Collection de M. Doistau," Gazette de l’hôtel Drouot, 18, 125 (November 27, 1909).

Wilhelm Vöge, "Über Nicolaus Gerhaert und Nicolaus von Hagenau (?)" Zeitschrift für Bildende Kunst 24 (1913), pp. 98–101.

Theodor Demmler, "Beiträge zur Kenntnis des Bildhauers Nicolaus Gerhaert von Leiden," Jahrbuch der Preuszischen Kunstsammlungen 24 (1921), p. 29.

Otto Schmidt, Oberrheinische Plastik im ausgehenden Mittelalter (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1924), pp. 19–20, pl. 18.

Wilhelm Pinder, Die Deutsche Plastik vom ausgehenden mittelalter bis zum ende der Renaissance 2 (Wildpark-Potsdam, 1929), pp. 357, 360.

Otto Wertheimer, Nicolaus Gerhaert, seine Kunst und seine Wirkung (Berlin, 1929), pp. 75–76, 99, figs. 60, 62.

L. Fischel, "Nouvelles attributions au maître de la vierge de Dangolsheim," Archives Alsaciennes d’historie de l’art 15 (1936), pp. 68–69.

Martin Weinberger, "A Rediscovered Gothic Bust," The Compleat Collector 3, 10 (August 1943), p. 2 ff, pls. 1, 5.

"An Expert Eye Rescues a Rare Treasure of Art," Chicago Daily Tribune (December 2, 1943).

"Remodeled Bust of St. Margaret at Art Institute," Chicago Sun (January 31, 1944).

Oswald Goetz and Meyeric Rogers, "A Medieval Masterpiece Rediscovered," Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago 38, 4 (April – May 1944), p. 54 ff.

Helen Comstock, "Discovery of a Sculpture by Nikolaus Gerhaert of Leyden," Connoisseur 113, 492 (June 1944), p. 113.

Art Institute of Chicago, An Illustrated Guide to the Collections of the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago, 1945), p. 19 (ill.).

Art Institute of Chicago, "Great Medieval Art for Chicago," The Art Institute of Chicago: The Year 1944 (1945), p. 3.

Meyeric Rogers and Oswald Goetz, Handbook to the Lucy Maud Buckingham Medieval Collection (Chicago, 1945), p. 63, no. 12, pls. 17,18, 19.

American Correspondent, "Medieval Sculpture in the Buckingham Collection," Connoisseur 120, 505 (September 1947), pp. 50–51, figs. 3, 4.

Richard S. Davis, "Masterpieces of Sculpture," Bulletin of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts 38, 29 (November 1949), p. 156, no. 23.

Walter Paatz, Süddeutsche Schnitzaltäre der Spätgotik (Heidelberg, 1963), pp. 95–96.

Harald Keller, "Der Flügelaltar als Reliquienschrein," Studien zur Geschichte der europäischen Plastik, Festschrift Theodor Müller zum 19 April 1965, edited by Theodor Müller (Munich, 1965), pp. 135–36.

Theodor Müller, Sculpture in the Netherlands, Germany, France, and Spain, 1400 to 1500 (Baltimore, 1966), p. 107.

Ernst Petrasch, "Spätgothik am Oberrhein: Meisterwerk der Plastik und des Kunsthandwerks 1450–1530," Jahrbuch der Staatlichen Kunstsammlungen in Baden-Württemberg 9 (1972), pp. 100–02.

Roland Recht, "Une sculpture Alsacienne du XVe siècle au Musée de Boston," Cahiers Alsaciens d’archéologie d’art et d’histoire 17 (1973), p. 98, fig. 4.

Jörg Rosenfeld, Die Weissenburger Büsten von Niclaus von Leiden und seiner Strassburger Werkstatt, master's thesis (University of Hamburg, 1986), pp. 46–48, 64–70 ff, pls. 1-6.

Roland Recht, Nicolas de Leyde et la sculpture à Strasbourg, 1460-1525 (Strasbourg, 1987), p. 344, no. I.09, pls. 32, 34.

Dorothy Gillerman, ed., Gothic Sculpture in America, vol. 2: The Museums of the Midwest (Turnhout, Belgium, 2001), pp. 28-30, no. 21.

Christina M. Nielsen, ed. Devotion and Splendor: Medieval Art at the Art Institute of Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 30, 2 (2004), p. 16, 81-82.

Ownership History

Sculpted for the Benedictine church of Saints Peter and Paul, Weissenburg (Wissembourg/Bas-Rhin), 1465-70. Remained there as part of the retable until the early 1870s [see Weinberger 1943, Goetz and Rogers 1944, Rosenfeld 1986, and Gillerman 2001]. Émile Gavet, Paris, by 1894 [see Molinier 1894]. Félix Doistau, Paris, by 1909; sold, his estate sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, November 20–21, 1909, lot 414, as "Buste-applique," to M. (Paul?) Drey for 4,600 francs [see Gazette de l’hôtel Drouot, November 27, 1909]. William Randolph Hearst, New York and San Simeon, by 1910 [see Weinberger 1943, Goetz and Rogers, 1944, Rosenfeld 1986, Recht 1987, and Gillerman 2001]. Gimbel Brothers (agent for Armand Hammer Galleries), New York, by 1943 [see invoice, 23 September 1943, and letter from Meyric Rogers to Oswald Goetz, 9 August 1943, in curatorial file]. Sold by Gimbel Brothers to the Art Institute, 1943.