![\"\"](\"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/interpreting-collections\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/375\/2019\/04\/Virgin.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Bartholomaeus Bruyn the Elder<\/strong> (German, 1493-1555)<\/span> The Museum’s acquisition of early 16th-century German altarpiece by Bartholom\u00e4us Bruyn the Elder is remarkable not only because few altarpieces come on the art market, but also because of its fine condition after undergoing conservation at Harvard University\u2019s Straus Center for Conservation. The purchase also satisfied a major goal to acquire a medieval or Renaissance work for the museum.<\/p>\n Dated 1515, this is the earliest known altarpiece by the artist, who was a contemporary of Lucas Cranach and Hans Holbein and the foremost painter in Cologne in the first half of the sixteenth century.\u00a0 It was painted for Dr. Peter von Clapis, a law professor of the University of Cologne, and his wife, Bela Bonenberg, who are represented in small donor portraits in the central panel, which also bears their coats of arms. The figures are well-rendered, a testament to Bruyn\u2019s skill as a portrait painter, and are set within a beautifully depicted landscape. The exterior paintings of Mary and the Archangel Gabriel form a scene of the Annunciation when the altarpiece wings are closed.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
\nThe Coronation of the Virgin<\/span><\/i>, 1515<\/span>
\nOil on wood<\/span>
\nMultiple funds (Purchased with the Hillyer\/Mather\/Tryon Fund; the Beatrice O. Chace, class of 1928, Fund; the Dorothy C. Miller, class of 1925, Fund; the Madeleine H. Russell, class of 1937, Fund; the Janet Wright Ketcham, class of 1953, Fund; the Margaret Walker Purinton Fund; the Carol Ramsay Chandler Fund; the fund in honor of Charles Chetham; the Katherine S. Pearce, class of 1915, Fund; and the Eva W. Nair Fund)<\/span>
\n[on view]<\/strong><\/p>\n