Portrait of Susanna Pfeffinger (1517), by Hans Baldung Grien. HANS BALDUNG GRIEN
It is a very small rectangle of paper (15.7 × 10.4 centimeters), barely larger than a postcard. Drawn on it, in three-quarter view, is the face of a woman whose eyes look off to the right. She is no longer young – past her fifties – nor very slender (if she ever was), her hair tucked into a veil, her jaw, up to her lower lip, and her neck wrapped in a scarf, wearing a severe dress buttoned up to the top. This was how devout women were depicted at the time.
Her identity is known, written later at the top of the sheet. Her name was Susanna Pfeffinger, born in 1465 in Sélestat (Alsace), where her father was the town's mayor. She died in Strasbourg in 1538. Pfeffinger was the wife of Friedrich Prechter (1450 – 1528), a prominent merchant and banker in Strasbourg; he lent money to Charles V. The drawing was valued by auctioneer Arthur de Moras, partner at the Beaussant Lefèvre firm, who brought it to light, between €1.5 million and €3 million. That makes it arguably, per square meter, the most expensive surface ever sold in Paris. Why?
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