The Dream of Paris

1536

Monogrammist PG
Germany, active c. 1525–50

With its half-length format and small size, this jewel-like painting was designed to foster private reflection on the biblical narrative and compassion for its characters. Such religious subjects—here, the adoration of the infant Jesus—adorned domestic spaces in the early 16th century, fueled by a rapid increase in private collecting. Although Cornelis Engebrechtsz. worked in the northern Netherlandish city of Leiden, he and his assistants likely made this work for sale in the more cosmopolitan southern provinces of the Spanish Netherlands, then the center of the emerging art market. Its design was copied in several paintings and in manuscript illuminations made in Bruges, a testament to the broad circulation of Engebrechtsz.’s works.

Status: On View, Gallery 207
Department: Painting and Sculpture of Europe

Artist: Matthias Gerung
Title: The Dream of Paris
Place: Germany (Artist's nationality)
Date: 1495–1550
Medium: Oil on panel
Inscriptions: Inscribed: PARIS / TRAM (on paper attached to central tree trunk),1 O.W. / 1536 / PG (or GP) in ligature (on central tree trunk)
Dimensions: 49.1 × 32.8 cm (19 5/16 × 12 7/8 in.); Painted Surface: 48.4 × 32 cm (19 1/16 × 12 5/8 in.)
Credit Line: Charles H. and Mary F. S. Worcester Collection
Reference Number: 1940.935
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/58702/manifest.json

“Early German Exhibition at Kleinberger’s,” Art News 27, 6 (1928), p. 5.
Frank Jewett Mather, Jr., “An Exhibition of German Primi-tives,” Arts 14 (1928), pp. 311–12.
Frank E. Washburn Freund, “Ausstellung altdeutscher Malerei in den F. Kleinberger Galleries zu New York,” Belvedere 8 (1929), p. 285.
Hertha Wescher-Kauert, “Zu den malerischen Anfängen des Matthias Gerung,” Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst 63 (1929–30), pp. 150–53 (ill.).
The Art Institute of Chicago, A Guide to the Paintings in the Permanent Collection, 1932, p. 193, no. 1104.28.
Charles L. Kuhn, A Catalogue of German Paintings of the Middle Ages and Renaissance in American Collections, Cambridge, Mass., 1936, p. 57, no. 215.
Daniel Catton Rich, ed., Catalogue of the Charles H. and Mary F. S. Worcester Collection of Paintings, Sculpture and Drawings, Chicago, 1938, pp. 43–44, no. 40, pl. 29.
The Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings in The Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Picture Collection, 1961, p. 177.
Mikhail Iakovlevich Libman, Zhivopis i risunok Ger-manii i Avstrii XV–XIX vekov, exh. cat., Moscow, [Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts], 1963, p. 28, under no. 602.
[Kurt Löcher], “Staatsgalerie Stuttgart: Neuerwerbungen 1967,” Jahrbuch der staatlichen Kunstsummlungen in Baden-Württemberg 5 (1968), p. 202.
John Maxon, The Art Institute of Chicago, London, 1970, pp. 254 (ill.), 282.
Dieter Koepplin and Tilman Falk, Lukas Cranach: Gemälde, Zeichnungen, Druckgraphik, vol. 2, exh. cat., Kunstmuseum Basel, 1976, p. 532, under no. 381.
Inge El-Himoud-Sperlich, “Das Urteil des Paris: Studien zur Bildtradi-tion des Themas im 16. Jahrhundert,” Ph.D. diss., Ludwig Max-milians Universität, Munich, 1977, p. 165.
Olga V. Postnikova, “Kartina Mattiasa Gerunga ‘Alle-goria liobvi’ iz sobrania GMII imeni A. S. Puszkina,” Soobshche-nia Gosudarstvennogo muzeia izobrazitelnykh iskusstv imeni A. S. Puszkina 9 (1992), p. 106.
Anja-Franziska Eichler, Mathis Gerung (um 1500–1570): Die Gemälde, Frankfurt, 1993, pp. 138, 141–51, 182–83, no. 11, fig. 79.
Fritz Grosse, “Thronbaldachine bei Ottheinrich von der Pfalz,” in Pfalzgraf Ottheinrich: Politik, Kunst und Wissenschaft im 16. Jahrhundert, Regensburg, 2002, pp. 210, 224–25, 285 (ill.).
Martha Wolff in Martha Wolff et al., Northern European and Spanish Paintings before 1600 in the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, 2008, pp. 404-7, ill.

New York, Kleinberger, Loan Exhibition of German Primitives for the Benefit of the American Red Cross, 1928, no. 51, as Georg Pentz [sic].
Art Institute of Chicago, Loan Exhibition of Old Masters, 1928–29 (no cat.).
Art Institute of Chicago, A Century of Progress, 1934, no. 14, as attributed to Matthias Gerung.

Dr. Reuling, Baltimore, 1902 [according to the catalogue of the Stillwell sale]. Dr. John E. Stillwell, New York, by 1927; sold, American Art Association, Anderson Galleries, New York, Dec. 1–3, 1927, no. 454, as Georg Pentz [sic], to Kleinberger for $4,750 [according to Charles Worcester’s annotation on the back of a photo in the curatorial file]. Kleinberger, New York and Paris, 1927–Oct. 1928; sold to Charles H. Worcester, Chicago, 1928 [invoice dated Oct. 13, 1928, Art Institute Archives; copy in curatorial file]; on loan to the AIC from 1928; given to the AIC, 1940.

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