As a follow-up to his call during the Speakers’ Corner of CODART 26 in Cologne last month, CODART member Peter van den Brink is now sharing his call for information about markings on panel paintings to a broader audience.
During recent research on the portrait painter Cornelis van Cleve, the letters “IF” were discovered on the back of the portrait of a young lady in the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum. The same mark came to light on two other panel paintings: an anonymous Adoration of the Magi (also at the Wall-Richartz-Museum) and Hans Memling’s Virgin and Child at London’s National Gallery.
Cornelis van Cleve, Portrait of a 25-year-old Lady, 1544, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum & Fondation Corboud, Cologne; Mark on the reverse
Anonymous German or Flemish, possibly Gaspar van den Hoecke, Adoration of the Magi, ca. 1620, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum & Fondation Corboud; Mark on the reverse
Hans Memling, Virgin and Child with an angel, Saint George and a donor, ca. 1480, National Gallery, London; Mark on the reverse
These three panels, all with a provenance leading to the significant nineteenth-century Cologne collections of Ferdinand Franz Wallraf (1748-1824), Franz Josef Engelbrecht Kerp (1775-1841) and Johann Peter Weyer (1794-1864), suggest a pre-Wallraf Cologne collection mark. Van den Brink believes “IF” refers to the extensive but mostly unknown collection of Johann Anton Farina (1718-1787) or that of his uncle Johann Maria Farina (1685-1766). The former’s colletion was auctioned on 1 September 1788, but unfortunately no annotated auction catalogue seems to have survived. Nevertheless, Van den Brink hopes to find more paintings with the mark IF and to compare them to the 1788 catalogue. Therefore your help in finding more pictures with this mysterious mark on their backs will be greatly appreciated.
Anyone who wishes to share information about this mark can contact Peter van den Brink at pbr.vandenbrink@gmail.com.