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About the Artwork
German artist Johann Wolfgang Baumgartner's innovations in rococo design are magnificently demonstrated in this sheet showing the story of Saint Deicolus and the Boar. The format of the work imitates that of a decorative cartouche, an ornamental framework surrounding an open field usually reserved for an inscription or emblem. Baumgartner ingeniously adapted the cartouche form for this scene: the framing elements seem to grow out of the landscape but are clearly artificial, and have the appearance of exuberant metalwork intertwined with vegetation and rocks. Deicolus was an Irish saint who founded an abbey in the Burgundy region of France. Baumgartner shows an incident in which Deicolus saved a boar from the hunting party of the ruler Clotaire II. The highly finished drawing on blue paper was made as a design for print from a suite combining saints with depictions of the hunt.
Inscriptions
Upper right, in graphite: a 30; verso, upper left, in graphite: 70_-50
Provenance
1966-1967: with C. G. Boerner, Inc., Dusseldorf. 1967-: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio
Exhibition history
Year in Review: 1967. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 29-December 31, 1967). Drawings. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 11-October 21, 1968). German Drawings of the 18th, 19th, and 20th Centuries. The Cleveland Museum of Art (April 1-July 13, 1980). 18th Century Master Drawings. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (October 6-November 22, 1981). Northern European Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 16, 1982-January 9, 1983). Treasures on Paper. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (May 10-July 24, 1988). Central European Drawings, 1680-1800: A Selection from American Collections. Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, NJ (organizer) (October 21-December 3, 1989); Art, Design & Architecture Museum, Santa Barbara, CA (January 10-February 25, 1990). The German Tradition. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (April 27-June 27, 1993). Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 27-October 17, 2000); The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY (May 23-August 19, 2001); Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, TX (October 14, 2001-January 6, 2002). Imagination in the Age of Reason. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 28, 2024-March 2, 2025).
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Johann Wolfgang Baumgartner (German, 1712–1761)
- Date
- 1747–48
- Medium
- pen and brown and gray inks and brush and gray wash heightened with white gouache; incised, verso coated with red chalk
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 52.2 x 73.5 cm (20 9/16 x 28 15/16 in.)
- Type
- Drawing
- Classification
- Drawing
- Department
- Drawings
- Credit line
- Dudley P. Allen Fund
- Accession no.
- 1967.22
More by Johann Wolfgang Baumgartner in museum collections
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Open-access museum record · AT-00010988
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