01 painting, The amorous game, Christoph Gertner's Mercenary Love, with Footnotes, #95

Christoph Gertner (German 1575/1580 – after 1623)

Mercenary Love

Oil on canvas

95 x 114 cm

Private collection

Sold for EUR 46,080.- in November 2022

The subject of matchmaking is a recurrent theme in North European painting. In the present painting the notion of a transaction is implicit and the painting appears to be an allegory of mercenary love. On the table are coins and wine which are emblematic of vice.

Christoph Gertner was probably born in Arnstadt, Thuringia, which is suggested by the letter ‘A’ bound into the monogram he commonly used: ‘CGA’ (see J. Zimmer in literature). It is assumed that he was in Prague, at the court of Rudolf II, around 1600. By 1604 he was court painter to Henry Julius, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, until 1621 when he left to work for the Protestant Archbishop of Brandenburg. Most of Gertner’s works are still in various institutions in the German city of Wolfenbüttel. More on Christoph Gertner

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