File talk:Esther Barbara von Sandrart.jpg

Esther Barbara von Sandrart

The person shown is E. M. von Sandrart, it is easy to find out by looking at the original: http://www.virtuelles-kupferstichkabinett.de/index.php?selTab=3&currentWerk=19967&

Represented person - dargestellt Person

This file has been uploaded in 2005 from http://www.maria-sibylla-merian.de as a painting of Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717). Then, on 22 May 2013, an IP said the represented person is Esther Barbara von Sandrart (1651-1731 or 1733, maiden name Bloemart) with the source http://kk.haum-bs.de/?id=g-d-heumann-ab3-0024

So who is really the represented person?

• Medium/technique: The two images are clearly the same person, but it’s not the same medium: this file is clearly a painting (even it’s bad JPEG) and the IP’s file is clearly an engraving. So I guess there are two works, and one is a copy of the other.
• Author: the painting is claimed from Georg Gsell (1673-1740), the engraving from George Desmarées (1697-1776). Given the living dates of each person and the fact the image represent a quite old person (around 50-60 years I would say), there are chances the couple painter+subject are either [Georg Gsell+Maria Sibylla Merian] either [George Desmarées+Esther Barbara von Sandrart], and probably one artist created the other work from the other artist’s work.
• Dates: the engraving has three legends and dates below (if I read correctly, not sure): "Georg de Marees Holmia Suecus pinx. Norib, 1725" on left, "G.D. Heumann ſe Norib. 1727." on right, and "Nata. d.7. Jun. 1651." in the text below. The name "Sandrarta" appears in the text below. So it looks like the engraving is clearly from George Desmarées and is from 1725-1727. If this work is created from the original subject and not from a copy of the painting, it could not be Anna Maria Sibylla Meria (dead in 1717). On the other side, since one work is a copy from the other (and the works are correctly attributed to Georg Gsell and George Desmarées), there are more chances the original is from Georg Gsell and the copy from George Desmarées and hence there are more chances the subject is Maria Sibylla Merian. If the represented person is Esther Barbara von Sandrart in 1725, she would be 74-year-old, but in this case the painting would be falsely attributed to Georg Gsell.
• Familly: Georg Gsell’s wife, Maria-Dorothea, is the daughter of Maria Sibylla Merian, so there are chances Georg Gsell painted his mother-in-law.
• Comparison with other images: I didn’t find other images representing Esther Barbara von Sandrart. For Maria Sibylla Merian, there are mainly File:Merian 500DM.jpg (young) and File:Merian Portrait.jpg (old). I would say it could be Maria Sibylla Merian in a age near the second image, although her face is thiner in the second image, I don’t know if it’s a deformation of the reality by the painter or if it’s not Maria Sibylla Merian. When I see other paintings from Georg Gsell and George Desmarée, I would unable to say who could be the painter. Ultimately given I have no image of Esther Barbara von Sandrart, it is difficult to assert something.
• décor of the image: there are a map of the Central America (only on the painting), and various seashells and butterflies. There are various details showing an image is a copy of the other (apart the map): the perspective is not strictly the same (see the chair), there is a pillar in the background of the engraving, the folds of the clothes are not exactly the same (see the collar), the small furniture has a drawer differently open, and some seashells are clearly different. Maria Sibylla Merian travelled in the Suriname for her research as entomologist, and she was deeply interested in caterpillars, butterflies and their metamorphosis, so it would be very logic Maria Sibylla Merian wanted to be painted with some butterflies (I don’t know if she was also deeply interested in seashells).

Links where informations are found: de:Joachim von Sandrart, fr:Maria Sibylla Merian, de:Georg Gsell, en:Georg Desmarées, [1] (with zoomed image), [2], [3]

To conclude, although a doubt can exist, I see more clues saying that the represented person is Maria Sibylla Merian. Some way to assert this result (or prove the contrary) would be to find where is located the painting and assert who is the painter and/or which is exactly the date of painting (I don’t know if it’s possible to date such an old painting with such precision; but if < 1710 it’s Maria Sibylla Merian, if > 1717 it’s Esther Barbara von Sandrart).

~ Seb35 [^_^] 13:03, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

PS : on the German-speaking Wikipedia, the article de:Joachim von Sandrart has a note (added 22 May 2013 by the same IP) saying this image of (English translation) « Esther Barbara Bloemart (1651–1731 or 1733) from a merchant family of Nuremberg, of who the well-known portrait [3] is often falsely thought as a representation of Maria Sibylla Merian. » with [3] being « Porträt von Esther Barbara von Sandrart. In: Virtuelles Kupferstichkabinett. Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum/Herzog August Bibliothek, abgerufen am 22. Mai 2013. ». There are no further source other than the engraving and no investigation, so here are my arguments, suggesting the contrary by the way. ~ Seb35 [^_^] 13:33, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

There are the museum links that point to this work being a portrait of Esther Barbara von Sandrart, which are reliable sources.[4][5] [6] PigeonChickenFish (talk) 22:50, 14 December 2022 (UTC)