A Goldsmith and his Hidden Side

This recently restored portrait presumably depicts Martin Marquart, a goldsmith
active in Augsburg in the third quarter of the sixteenth century, then a leading
centre of goldsmith work in Europe. The (renewed) inscription tells us not only
his surname (»Marckardus«) but also that he was thirty­four years old when he sat
for his portrait. He is clutching a silver ewer, part of a so­called lavabo set. The
classicising décor on this luxury artefact became popular throughout Europe
around 1540 (see ill. 4). Marquart’s portrait was produced around 1560, and here
the ewer functions as the attribute of a goldsmith who is au courant with contemporary
 taste and wants to advertise both his virtuosity and skill and the exalted
rank of his illustrious patrons. Records have survived for a number of works that
Marquart had produced around this time for the imperial court in Vienna and the
Duke of Bavaria. The design for a ewer now in London is so similar to the vessel
depicted here that it can be attributed to Marquart’s workshop (ill. 5).

The portrait of a scholar dated 1559 (ill. 6), also in Vienna, is probably by the
same artist. Recently art historians have tried to identify him among the followers
of Christoph Amberger (c. 1500/05–1562), the celebrated portrait painter from
Augsburg; it is, however, more likely that he was an artist from the Low Countries
who had trained in Italy. Until the early twentieth century the two portraits now
in Vienna were believed to be by Pieter Pourbus (1523–1584), and they have much
in common with early works by Marten de Vos (1532–1603), a native of Antwerp
(see ill. 7). The panels comprising the support – pine for the portrait of Marquart,
lime for that of the scholar – and the latter’s German inscription clearly show that
they were not produced in the Low Countries. Perhaps the artist belonged to the
retinue of an important dignitary who attended the Diet of Augsburg in 1559.

Marquart’s portrait probably dates from that year, but the scene on the back
of the panel is by another artist and may have been added later. It is clearly associated
 with the traces of two hinges on the left edge of the panel that once facilitated
 turning the latter to admire the paintings on both sides. Both the fact that
Marquart faces us and the meaning of the scene depicted on the back of the panel
make it unlikely that there was once a second painting attached to our panel with
a portrait of his wife or mistress. The scene features a recumbent female nude and
a satyr proffering a necklace; behind him stands a weeping Cupid. A later engraving
 by Theodor de Bry illustrates that this mythological scene should be read as
a symbol of love for sale (ill. 9): perhaps the elderly male patron – personified by
the venal and ugly satyr – has lost the joy of love, as expressed by Cupid’s lamentations;
 but at least he has enough spare cash to be able to purchase sexual gratification.
 We may assume that Marquart only commissioned the back when he
was older and a widower, in which case the scene should be read tongue­incheek,
 with the depicted goldsmith work also cleverly referencing his profession.
Thus the panel may have functioned as a kind of door (of a cupboard or a niche)
in the goldsmith’s private quarters where only selected visitors had the opportunity
 to view the suggestive back of the panel. 25