by Redazione 06/11/2026
Categories: Ancient art / Disclaimer
Until this year, only two pure landscape paintings in oil by Albrecht Altdorfer—a German painter considered one of the first to make nature the subject of a painting—were known to exist. The third, painted around 1520 on a 23-centimeter-long parchment, has just resurfaced and will be auctioned in London on December 9 with an estimate of between 3 and 5 million pounds.
An extremely rare painting by Albrecht Altdorfer ( Regensburg, 1480–1538) is about to come up for sale. This is an exceptional event, as there are very few known paintings by this German artist, who is considered one of the first in the history of European art to paint landscapes as an independent subject. And the one set to be auctioned in London at Sotheby’s on December 9 is an exceptional example, which also explains its estimate of between 3 and 5 million pounds—or between 3.6 and 6 million euros.
It depicts a forest. It has just stopped raining: the trees are dense, the undergrowth covered in moss, and a rainbow appears behind the evergreens. The sun is not visible: one can barely sense it through a slight break in the clouds. There are no saints, no mythological scenes, and no human figures in the painting. There is only the forest. And this is precisely what makes it exceptional, because the painting is one of the earliest known landscapes in art history in which no narrative scenes are depicted. There is only the view of a forest.
The painting, dating from around 1520, resurfaced earlier this year. Until then, only two pure landscapes in oil by the artist were known: one is housed at the National Gallery in London, the other atthe Alte Pinakothek in Munich. The new discovery brings the total to three. “Adding a work to the catalog of one of the great masters of the Northern Renaissance is one of the most exciting discoveries imaginable in our field,” comments George Gordon, chairman of Sotheby’s Old Masters department, who describes it as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for collectors.
According to the auction house’s description, the work is titled *Wooded Landscape with a Rainbow Behind the Trees and a Rocky Outcrop in the Distance on the Right, Under a Cloud-Filled Sky*. It is painted in oil on parchment glued to a panel, likely made of linden wood, which in turn was transferred from an older panel, also possibly made of linden wood. It measures 23.4 by 19.8 centimeters and is signed with the artist’s monogram, AA, on the trunk of a larch tree to the left of center. According to Sotheby’s, it is the smallest and most densely vegetated of Altdorfer’s pure landscapes, in any medium.
Each of the three known paintings depicts a different time of day and weather condition. The National Gallery’s landscape is bathed in full daylight, while the one in Munich is bathed in warm evening light. The new painting, however, captures the moment immediately after the rain. Gordon describes an almost tangible atmosphere, with the sun struggling to break through the clouds and its light refracted into a rainbow. In his view, some five hundred years later, the painting still appears as modern and immediate as it must have seemed to those who first saw it.
To understand why an image like this is so important, one must look at what other painters of the time were doing. For Altdorfer’s contemporaries, nature was almost always a backdrop—the setting in which to place religious or mythological figures. For him, however, the forest could be a subject in its own right. “The first independent landscapes in the history of European art were painted by Albrecht Altdorfer,” writes art historian Christopher Wood in his 1993 study *Albrecht Altdorfer and the Origins of Landscape*. Simon Schama points to Altdorfer’s most extraordinary achievement as having made the forest itself the natural protagonist of the painting.
The painting belongs to a private Swiss collection; the current owner’s father purchased it in 1957. Previously, it was part of the aristocratic collection of the Counts of Harrach and was housed in the Baroque Palais Harrach in Vienna. It had never been offered at auction. And opportunities to purchase a work by Altdorfer are extremely rare: according to Sotheby’s, this is the first time since 1980 that a painting attributed to him has been offered on the market. That year, the National Gallery in London privately acquired *Christ Bidding Farewell to His Mother * for a reported sum of 2.45 million pounds—one of the highest prices paid for a work of art at the time.
Altdorfer was born in Regensburg, the city on the Danube between Munich and Nuremberg, and died there in 1538. Around 1511, a journey south into the Alps provided him with a repertoire of mountain landscapes and seemingly boundless vistas that he would use in his later paintings, beginning with his most famous work, The Battle of Alexander at Issus, painted in 1529 for Duke William IV of Bavaria and now one of the most famous paintings in the Alte Pinakothek. From 1513 onward, he worked in the service of Emperor Maximilian I, but during the turbulent years of the Reformation, he retired to his hometown, where he remained until his death. There he lived in relative comfort, devoting himself to painting, drawing, engraving, and even architecture. After Albrecht Dürer, he is considered the most celebrated painter of the German Renaissance. More recently, the Musée du Louvre dedicated an exhibition to him, organized in close collaboration with the Albertina in Vienna.
Altdorfer’s landscape will be on public display at Sotheby’s in New York from November 7 to 19 and then at Sotheby’s in London from December 4 to 9. As mentioned, it will be auctioned on December 9 in London during the Old Masters Evening Sale.
 |
| A very rare landscape by Albrecht Altdorfer has surfaced: the painting is set to go up for auction with a million-dollar estimate |
Warning: the translation into English of the original Italian article was created using automatic tools. We undertake to review all articles, but we do not guarantee the total absence of inaccuracies in the translation due to the program. You can find the original by clicking on the ITA button. If you find any mistake,please contact us.