Woltmann, Alfred

Date born:1841

Place born:  Berlin, Germany

Date died: 1880

Place died:  Mentone, France

In 1871, Woltmann was among the team of art historians (the others including Moritz Thausing, Carl von Lützlow, Adolf von Bayersdorfer, Friedrich Lippmann, Wilhelm Lübke, Bruno Meyer, Karl Woermann, G Malsz and Wilhelm Bode, all q.v.) who convened in Dresden to determine which of two versions of Hans Holbein the younger's Meyer Madonna was the autograph work.  The so-called "Holbein convention," one of the important events in nineteenth-century art history when many methodical approaches were employed to determined authenticity, concluded that the Darmstadt version was the original.

Home Country:  Germany

Sources:  Metzler Kunsthistoriker Lexikon: zweihundert Porträts deutschsprachiger Autoren aus vier Jahrhunderten. Stuttgart: Metzler, 1999, pp. 490-3; Kultermann, Udo. The History of Art History. New York: Abaris, 1993, p. 145.

Bibliography: Entstehung und Ausbildung des gotischen Stils, 1872. Vol. V of Geschichte der Bildenden Künste. 2nd ed. 8 vols. Stuttgart: Ebner & Seubert, 1866-79; and Meyer, Bruno, and Görling, Adolph. Deutschlands Kunstschätze: eine Sammlung der hervorragendsten Bilder Berliner, Dresdner, Münchner, Wiener, Casseler und Braunschweiger Galerien. 4 vols.  Leipzig: A.H. Payne, 1871-1872, English, Art Treasures of Germany. A Collection of the Most Important Pictures of the Galleries of Dresden, Cassel, Brunswick, Berlin, Munich and Vienna.  Boston:  S. Walker & Co., 1873