Rare Altdorfer Landscape, Unseen for 70 Years, Heads to Sotheby's

By Elena Vasquez

A painting by German Renaissance artist Albrecht Altdorfer, unseen in public for 70 years, will appear at Sotheby's in London on December 9. The house estimates the work at $3 million to $6.7 million (£3 million to £5 million).

The panel carries the lengthy title A Thickly Wooded Landscape With a Rainbow Behind the Trees and a Distant Outcrop to the Right Beneath a Cloud-Laden Sky. It was completed around 1520. It has spent the past seven decades in a private Swiss collection. That is 70 years without a single public viewing.

The painting measures just 23 by 20 centimeters. It depicts dense trees and greenery against a gray and blue sky, with what appears to be a distant volcano in the background.

What did Sotheby's say about the work?

George Gordon, chairman of Sotheby's worldwide old masters department, said in a statement that every inch of the painting is "imbued with an intense mood that transcends its scale."

He kept the description sensory. "The atmosphere is palpable, you can feel that the rain has just stopped, and the sun behind the clouds is struggling to make its presence felt, its light refracted though the rainbow that arcs behind the trees," Gordon said.

He also addressed the work's immediacy across five centuries. "Dating from some 500 years ago, it somehow still feels as modern and immediate as it would have appeared to those seeing it when it was first painted," he said.

The takeaway: Sotheby's is positioning a postcard-sized panel as a major market event.

Why is the painting significant for art history?

Altdorfer is considered one of the earliest Western landscape artists. Before this painting was identified earlier this year, only two works by him were known to the public:

• Landscape With a Footbridge, held by the National Gallery in London
• Landscape of the Danube near Regensburg, at the Alte Pinakothek in Munich

The rediscovery raises the known tally of publicly documented Altdorfer landscape paintings from two to three.

The work's provenance is documented. The current owner's father acquired it in 1957 from the collection of the counts of Harrach at the Palais Harrach in Vienna.

The last time an Altdorfer painting went to auction was 1980. On that occasion, the National Gallery privately acquired Christ Taking Leave of His Mother (1520) for $3.30 million (£2.45 million) through Christie's — 45 years ago.

Put plainly: this is a once-in-two-generations market opportunity for Altdorfer buyers.

Where can the public see it before the sale?

Sotheby's will exhibit the painting in two cities before the December 9 evening auction, part of the "Old Master & 19th Century Paintings" sale in London:

• Sotheby's New York: November 7–19
• Sotheby's London: December 4–9

If the panel reaches its high estimate, it would surpass the 1980 Christie's result — set when the National Gallery bought Christ Taking Leave of His Mother — and set a new auction benchmark for the artist who first made landscape a subject in its own right.