The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of February 1, 2023

Allegory of Christian Belief

c. 1622

Johann Liss

(German, c. 1597–1631)

Germany, 17th century

Pen and brown ink and brush and brown wash; framing lines in pen and black ink

Support: Beige(1) laid paper

Sheet: 15.3 x 9.4 cm (6 x 3 11/16 in.)

Dudley P. Allen Fund 1953.6

Location

not on view

Description

This exceedingly rare drawing is one of only two signed sheets by Liss, who, in spite of the brevity of his career, was one of the most important German-born painters of the 17th century. Here, faith is personified as a woman with bared breasts and bare feet, symbolic of true Christian belief: plain, pure, and without artifice. She has cast aside worldly things-a crown, scepter, and book-and gazes heavenward as smoke wafts from an urn. The long inscription indicates that the sheet is from an album amicorum, or friendship book, in which drawings, poems, and autographs were collected as souvenirs of acquaintanceships. Liss may have made the drawing to dazzle an influential recipient with his inventive interpretation of a traditional religious subject.

Inscriptions

Inscription

signed, lower right, in brown ink: Johan Liss / Mahler [illegible] / Holsati[a][masked] ; by artist, upper right, in brown ink: Alle Kunst undt widtz ist / eitel staub. / Hoch weisheidt ist ann. / Christum gelaub. ; by artist, lower right, in brown ink: Zu Rom den 19 martis Ao ["o" in superscript] 16[illegible, final two numbers abraded] ; upper left, in brown ink: + [collector's mark?]; upper right, along right edge, in brown ink: 265 [sideways] ; VERSO, upper left, in ink: 572 ; upper right, in graphite: 69 [sideways] ; center, in graphite: No. 99 al ; lower right, in graphite: Joh. Liss. [erased] ; lower left, in graphite: mj [?] ; lower left, in graphite: T5910 ; lower left, in graphite: Jah. Lys 1570-1626 ; lower right, in graphite(?): Bo. 20

Provenance
?-?
possibly Karl Eduard von Liphart, Dorpat
?-?
Reinhold von Liphart (Lugt 1758), Dorpat
by 1929
Dr. Arthur Feldman, Brno, Czechoslovakia* 1
?1940
Dr. O. Feldmann, Brünn, Austria
1953
with Herbert N. Bier, London

Provenance Footnotes

1 *In 1939, shortly after the invasion of Czechoslovakia by Germany, the contents of Dr. Feldmann's home, including his drawings collection, were seized by the Nazis. Dr. Feldmann was arrested, tortured, and died in 1941. Mrs. Feldmann was deported to Theresienstadt and later perished at Auschwitz. The drawing is known to have been in Feldmann's collection as early as 1929, when it was seen by Dr. Otto Benesch and noted as in the collection of Dr. Arthur Feldmann. Dr. Benesch published the work in a 1933 article, "Beschreibender Katalog, Die Zeichnungen der Deutschen Schulen," indicating its provenance as "Feldmann Collection." The drawing was published again in 1940 by Kurt Steinbart in "Johann Liss der Maler aus Holstein" (and in a subsequent revised edition under the same title published in 1946), but the ownership, in both editions, was attributed to Dr. O. Feldmann (one of Dr. Arthur Feldmann's two sons). Dr. Benesch again published the work in 1951 in an article on Liss's "Temptation of St. Anthony," indicating its provenance as formerly in the collection of Dr. A. Feldmann. The Museum acquired the drawing from a London dealer, Herbert Bier, whose records indicate that he acquired the work that same year from R. A. Newton. In 2013, the Cleveland Museum of Art settled an ownership claim from the heirs of Arthur Feldmann, allowing the drawing to remain in the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art.
Citations

Benesch, Otto, Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Alfred Stix, Anton Reichel, and Konrad Oberhuber. Beschreibender Katalog der Handzeichnungen in der Graphischen Sammlung Albertina. Bd. 4. Die Zeichnungen der deutschen Schulen bis zum Beginn des Klassizismus : Text / bearbeitet von Hans Tietze [and others] -- Wien: A. Schroll, 1933. Vol 4: p. 71, no. 625 (as Sammlung Feldmann, Brunn)

Steinbart, Kurt. Johann Liss. Wien: Schroll, 1946. p. 61, no. 36; illus. p. 36 (as collection of O. Feldmann)

Bloch, Vitale, "Liss and His 'Fall of Phaeton,'" The Burlington Magazine Vol. 92, No. 571 (Oct. 1950): pp. 278, 280-282. p. 281

Benesch, Otto, "Liss's 'Temptation of St Anthony,'" The Burlington Magazine Vol. 93, No. 585 (Dec. 1951): 376-377, 379. p. 379 (as formerly collection of Dr. A. Feldmann, Brno)

Schilling, Edmund, "Betrachtungen Zu Zeichnungen Von Johan Liss," in Schwingel, Karl. Festschrift für Karl Lohmeyer. Saarbrücken: West-Ost-Verlag, 1954: 30-38. p. 31

The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958. Mentioned and Reproduced: cat. no. 583 archive.org

The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966. Reproduced: p. 114 archive.org

The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969. Reproduced: p. 114 archive.org

Pignatti, Terisio. Venetian Drawings from American Collections: A Loan Exhibition, Organized and Circulated by the International Exhibitions Foundation, 1974-1975 : Introduction and Catalogue. [Washington]: International Exhibitions Foundation, 1974. p. 22, no. 37

Richards, Louise S. and Rudiger Klessmann, Johann Liss: Exhibition Under the Protectorate of the President of the German Bundestag, Frau Annemarie Renger, the International Council of Museums (ICOM), and Supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, Washington. 1975. p. 26; pp. 142-143, cat. B50, Fig. 53

The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978. Reproduced: p. 134 archive.org

Pignatti, Terisio. Disegni antichi del Museo Correr di Venezia: catalogo. Vicenza: N. Pozzi, 1980. p. 24, illus. p. 23, fig. 16

Pallucchini, Rodolfo, and Maria Maddalena Palmegiano. La pittura veneziana del Seicento. [Venezia]: Alfieri, 1981. p. 143

Kaufmann, Thomas DaCosta. Drawings from the Holy Roman Empire, 1540-1680: A Selection from North American Collections. Princeton, N.J.: Art Museum, Princeton University in association with Princeton University Press, 1982. p. 202, cat. 79

Klessmann, Rudiger, "Addenda to Johann Liss," The Burlington Magazine Vol. 128, No. 966 (Mar. 1986): 191-197. pp. 193, 194, fig. 24

Wojciechowski, Jerzy, "A Preparatory Drawing for Liss's 'Temptation of St. Anthony,'" The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 138, No. 1116 (Mar. 1996): 191-192. p. 192, p. 192n7, 192n12.

Klessmann, Rudiger, "Neue Funde und Betrachtungen zum Werk von Johann Liss," Münchner Jahrbuch der bildenden Kunst. Vol. LX. (2009): 59-90. p. 65, fig. 7

Litt, Steven, "Cleveland Museum of Art settles claim over Johann Liss drawing said to have been taken by Nazis from Feldmann Collection," The Plain Dealer, May 26, 2013.

Exhibition history

Department of Prints and Drawings Opening Exhibition. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (March 3, 1958-October 11, 1959).

Drawings from the Museum Collection: 15th-17th Centuries. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (May 18-October 11, 1960).

Drawings. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (January 11-September 10, 1963).

Old Master Drawings. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 10-30, 1964).

Art in Italy, 1600-1700. The Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI (organizer) (April 6-May 9, 1965).

Old Master Prints and Drawings. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (July 29, 1966-April 1, 1967).

Venetian Drawings from American Collections. National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC (September 21-November 24, 1974); Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, TX (December 7, 1974-February 9, 1975); The Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, OH (February 22-April 20, 1975).

The German Tradition. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (April 27-June 27, 1993).

Treasures on Paper from the Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (March 9-June 8, 2014).

Source URL: https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1953.6