The Bewitched Groom

Public Domain

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Artist Hans Baldung (German, 1484/85–1545)German, 1484/85–1545

CultureGerman

Titles

The Bewitched Groom

Datec. 1544–1545

MediumWoodcut on laid paper, state II/II

DimensionsImage/Sheet: 13 1/16 × 7 13/16 in. (33.1 × 19.8 cm)
Frame: 21 3/8 × 15 7/8 × 1 in. (54.3 × 40.3 × 2.5 cm)

Credit LineMuseum purchase funded by the Director's Accessions Endowment

Object number2025.418

Not on view

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Department

Prints and Drawings

Object Type

PRINTS

Provenance[Galerie Kornfeld, Bern, June 17, 1987, lot 6]; acquired at the above sale by Klaus Hegewisch (1919‒2014), 1987-20141; then by descent; [Christie’s, London, Spellbound: The Hegewisch Collection, Part I, October 16, 2025, lot 2]; purchased by MFAH, 2025.

1 Born in Hamburg in 1919, Klaus Hegewisch left school at 16 and joined a merchant company as an apprentice completing it in 1939. He served in the Navy and worked on a mine-sweeper clearing the shipping routes in the North Sea during and after the war. After WWII he joined an import business specializing in fruit and vegetables which he managed and grew until his retirement in 1986. The Hamburg businessman, lifelong yachtsman and enthusiastic art collector died at age 94, having amassed a vast collection of prints and drawings. As early as the mid-1950s, Hegewisch began collecting but his first wife, Helga, sparked his interest in modern art. The couple’s friendship with Wilhelm Grimm, a second-generation Expressionist with a passion for printmaking, greatly influenced their collecting. He remained focused on European art of the early 20th century by such artists as Edvard Munch, Max Beckmann, Käthe Kollwitz, Pablo Picasso and Otto Dix, but increased his holdings in the mid-1960s adding prints and drawings of late 18th and 19th century artists such as Francisco de Goya, Eugène Delacroix, Adolph von Menzel, Odilon Redon, James Ensor, and Max Klinger and additionally added Old Master works to his collection by such artists as Albrecht Dürer. Hans Baldung, Rembrandt, and Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. He graciously lent to exhibitions in Hamburg, Berlin, Oslo, St. Petersburg and many other European cities as well as museums in the United States, Japan, and Australia.
Exhibition HistoryHamburg, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Verhext – Phantastische Graphik aus der Sammlung Hegewisch, November 1997 – March 1998.
Published References none noted Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks

Recto: Artist's monogram in printed ink, in image, bottom right corner: HB
Verso: [inaccessible]

Barrel and countermark

Catalogue raisonnéF. W. H. Hollstein (et al.), German Engravings, Etchings and Woodcuts 1400-1700, Vol. 2, Amsterdam, 1954-1968, no. 237, p. 139 (another impression ill.).

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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