SEVERAL YEARS AGO, in the course of research into the collection of Buda Castle, Budapest, a previously unknown and unidentified inventory came to light in the Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv, Vienna.1 The inventory, labelled ‘Nota di Quadri colle loro misure’, indicates neither the owner of the collection nor the date or place in which it was made – it is only from certain entries that the present writers have been able to draw conclusions about such details. The note on Gregorio Gilbert’s Self-portrait mentions that the last Almirante di Castiglia presented it ‘al Bne de Wiser’. Wiser is also referred to in the 1975 catalogue of Italian paintings in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich, where it says that Luca Giordano’s St Andrew and Domenichino’s St Jerome were ‘erworben aus der Sammlung des Barons Heinrich Wiser aus Neuburg’ (in 1750).2 The date and place at which the inventory was made of the collection of Italian – principally Neapolitan – and Spanish masters can be determined by the mention of Paolo de Matteis’s Hercules at the crossroads (Alte Pinakothek, Munich). De Matteis painted the composition and its first variant, which was sent to England on the commission of the 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury (Temple Newsam House, Leeds), in 1712 in Naples. Judging from Wiser’s biography, the inventory was probably made in 1713 in Naples; Baron Wiser left the diplomatic service of the Palatinate in the same year.
Baron Wiser’s name is not entirely unknown in the history of art. If not his collection, then his role as an intermediary and purchaser of works of art on behalf of Johann Wilhelm, Elector Palatine, is referred to in several sources.3 However, we can gain only a sketchy picture of the life and career of Heinrich Franz Xavier Wiser of the Palatinate and Neuburg. He was born in 1665 in Neuburg an der Donau and died in 1749 in Jülich. His family was of noble origin from the Austrian provinces but settled in the Palatinate and entered into the service of the court.4 In 1690 Heinrich’s father, Gottfried Ignaz, was raised to the imperial title of baron in ‘den Reichs Ritter oder Edlen Herrenstand’ by the Emperor Leopold for ‘seine 50 Jahre der Pfalz geleisteten dienste’. Until his death in 1695 he was privy councillor and chancellor of the Elector Palatine. His five sons followed him into the Elector’s service; Heinrich as an envoy in Madrid, Naples and the Netherlands; Franz Melchior (1651–1702) as a secret councillor and later court chancellor; while Josef Dominikus and Gottfried Ignaz also filled important court posts.5 Heinrich Wiser studied in Ingolstadt, moved to Vienna where he worked at the state law courts (Reichshofgericht), and spent two years in Heidelberg (‘am Hof zu Heidelberg’). Subsequently he worked for three years in the diplomatic service in Lisbon. Pedro II, the King of Portugal, was the brother-in-law of the Elector Palatine, Johann Wilhelm, having married in 1687 Maria Sofia Isabel Palatine of Neuburg; Wiser may have accompanied her to Portugal. After Maria Anna, the Elector’s other sister, married Charles II King of Spain in 1690, Wiser was appointed as the queen’s secretary in Madrid in 1691. From July 1692 to November 1695 he lived and worked in Madrid as the ‘envoyé extraordinaire’ of the Elector Palatine. From letters and reports it would seem that, as the confidant of both the queen and the Elector, Wiser played an important role in mediating and purchasing works of art far beyond his diplomatic and court duties. The queen intended him to marry one of her ladies-in-waiting, but owing to Spanish intrigues he soon fell out of favour and was discharged from the queen’s service. Wiser was next sent by the Elector Palatine to a new post in Naples on 27th November 1695. His first task was to clear up the affairs of the Neapolitan estate of the Palatinate, the Baronia Rocca Guglielma, as a resident and governor, and then to enter the court of Francesco Farnese, Duke of Parma, who was Johann Wilhelm’s brother-in-law. Between 1697 and 1698 he worked in Rome in the Elector’s service. From 1702 to 1703 he was envoy extraordinary in The Hague and spent 1707 and 1708 in Vienna at the imperial court. In April 1708 Wiser received yet another posting as ‘ausserordentlicher Gesandter der Kurpfalz’ in Naples, from where he was recalled at the end of March 1713. In 1713 and 1714 he took part in the Congress of Rastadt that concluded the War of the Spanish Succession, but thereafter he does not appear to have received further appointments. He is mentioned in 1715–17, and in 1718–19 wrote a polemical paper, ‘Facti species der abenteuerlichsten Verfolgung [. . .] Ausgeübt an einen alten Churpfälzischen, wohl meritirten Freiherrn von Wiser’. In this paper, which dwells on his past accomplishments, he mentions that during his stay in Lisbon and Madrid he assembled a vast collection of paintings and statues of great value (‘eine Menge Gemälde, Statuen etc. verehrt’) – obviously for the Elector.6 Persecution referred to by Wiser in his writings was followed by terrible consequences. On his return from Italy, the Baron lived on his family estate in Neuburg until he was imprisoned in 1717, having crossed swords with Count Hundheim, minister of the Palatinate, and the new Elector Palatine, Philipp Karl, who had succeeded Johann Wilhelm in 1716. Wiser spent the rest of his life in Monschau and the citadel of Jülich, where he died in 1749. Apparently Karl Theodor, who became Elector in 1742, was willing to release the Baron under certain conditions, which, however, Wiser failed to fulfil. We have no further information about his picture collection. Meanwhile, the family, created counts, continued to play an important role in the history of the Palatinate in the first half of the eighteenth century. Even after Elector Johann Wilhelm’s death in 1716 members of the family held significant diplomatic and court posts in the service of his successors.7
While the official documents, through which we can follow Baron Wiser’s career, give us hints on the history of his collection and the purchase of works of art, there is little data directly connected to it. Purchasing on behalf of his patron, the Elector Palatine Johann Wilhelm, one of the most significant collectors of the time, and adding to his own collection evidently ran in parallel. In a report of 1712 he observes that Naples is the place where one can buy the best and cheapest pictures and that he himself had amassed a remarkable collection, at his own expense – not at the Elector’s, as gossip would have it.8 After Madrid, Naples was the best city in which to buy works of art, and to a lesser extent Rome and The Hague. Little is known of Wiser’s relations with fellow-collectors and art-dealers or of his contacts with artists, but the newly discovered inventory provides a framework for the reconstruction of his collection.
Despite intensive research into the works of art and collections of the Pfalz-Wittelsbach in Düsseldorf, Mannheim and Munich, the inventory was unknown. Nor is its purpose clear. Contrary to most seventeenth- and eighteenth-century inventories it is not an official document, detailing an estate or an evaluation attested by an official person or notary. It is not a local survey, is not based on specific rooms and does not provide valuations. Most prob­ably it was drawn up for a sale offered speculatively to the imperial court, which found no response.9 That it consists in part of works by little-known Italian – principally Neapolitan – and Spanish masters is not surprising.
The inventory is intended to be precise and competent. Of 173 items only eight are not attributed to an artist. Its compiler expresses doubt or uncertainty (‘giudicati di mano di’ or ‘di mano incerto’) and makes stylistic judgments (‘imitando il Caravaggio’ or ‘della scuola di Rubens’), and at times determines a period or notes that a work is ‘originale’. Artists’ names are often given in full, for example ‘Giuseppe de Ribera detto lo Spagnoletto’. There are references to places or schools (Murillo is called ‘quel famoso pittore Sevillano’), and works are appraised (‘Dipinto a meraviglia’ or ‘di mano superiore’), while there are also remarks on condition (‘cosi ben conservato che para fatto or ora’). From certain notes we can deduce that the inventory was based on the text of an earlier one, for example no.20: ‘nel copiare s’è cambiato l’ord.e dov.do star questo di sopra p intelligenza della mis.a’. Presumably it was in this earlier document that the provenance of some pictures was recorded (‘regalo dell’ Almte di Castiglia)’.10 The inventory gives the pictures’ supports (canvas, wood, copper, marble), format (tondo, octagon) and dimensions. However, instead of using the usual measurement ‘palmi’, occasionally ‘piedi’ is used.11 This use of two measurement systems, some presumably taken from the earlier inventory, makes identification of the works more difficult.
It is on the basis of these scant pieces of information that the history of the Wiser collection has to be reconstructed and works identified. We were unable to link any purchases to the Baron’s first post in Lisbon, in spite of Wiser’s note of 1718 in which he refers to acquiring valuable works of art both there and in Madrid. Considerably more information is available with regards to his ambassadorship in Madrid.12 We learn first about his acquisitions negotiated at the Spanish court for his patron, the Elector Palatine. Part of them were exchange gifts from the king or queen to Johann Wilhelm, such as Rubens’s Reconciliation of Jacob and Esau (Staatsgalerie, Schleissheim), but we also come across pictures bought by Wiser at the Elector’s expense, such as Velázquez’s Portrait of a youth in 1694 (Alte Pinakothek, Munich). To this group belong the works ordered through the mediation of Wiser from painters working in Madrid. Both the Elector Palatine and the Spanish queen often mention the Baron’s zeal and expert opinion in these transactions: ‘según Wiser, tienen bastante merito, así por la pintura como por el modelado’, writes Queen Mariana in a letter of 1694 to her brother.13 Wiser was also in contact with Luca Giordano, who had been working in Madrid since 1692 and sent several of his large-scale paintings to Düsseldorf.
Naturally Baron Wiser made use of these advantageous circumstances to establish and enlarge his own collection as well. From the sixteenth century it was customary for foreign envoys to be well versed in the fine arts, not only to enrich the picture collections of their princely patrons but also to acquire certain pieces for themselves. There are numerous instances of this from the time of Baron Wiser.14 For example, Count Ferdinand Bonaventura Harrach (1637–1706), ambassador to the Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I, gave a detailed account in his diary of how during his stay in Spain he visited palaces, collections and studios and how and what he purchased in Madrid at various auctions.15 Active at the same time as Wiser – although not an envoy to the Spanish in the same years as him (1672–77 and 1697–98) – their experiences and sources were similar.
Although the delegate from the Palatinate could hardly compete in funds with the enormously rich Austrian nobleman, the queen’s patronage, Wiser’s connections at court and personal contact with court artists must have helped him in his endeavours. The notes of the inventory also inform us about the origins of some of the pictures from Madrid. Rubens’s Portrait of a youth is accompanied by the note ‘regalo dell Almte’, Van Dyck’s Portrait of a woman by ‘pure regalo dell’ Almte’, while Padre Gregorio Gilbert’s Self-portrait was apparently presented by the artist himself to the Almirante di Castiglia (‘Padre del defunto poi donato da questo al Bne Wiser’). Juan Alonso Enríquez de Cabrera (1597–1647), Viceroy of Naples and admiral of Castiglia, amassed a collection of works of art of unparalleled value during his residence in Italy. After his death in 1647 the collection was inherited by his son, Juan Gaspar Enríquez de Cabrera, who added to it, and it was in turn inherited in 1691 by his son, Juan Tomás Enríquez, Prince of Ríoseco, the last Almirante di Castiglia.16 The picture gallery of the admiral was considered by his contemporaries to be the most significant Spanish collection; Count Harrach, the Viennese Ambassador, claimed that in his personal opinion it exceeded the collections in Vienna of both the Emperor and Archduke Leopold Wilhelm. The relationship between Wiser and the last admiral may have been reinforced by the fact that Juan Tomás Enríquez de Cabrera belonged to the circle of Wiser’s patron, Queen María Anna. Having fled from Spain to Portugal in 1702, the last admiral died in 1705.
Another source of Wiser’s Spanish acquisitions could have been the equally famous collection of Luis Mendez de Haro y Guzmán, 6th Marqués del Carpio. However, lack of specific references make this difficult to prove. Our task is further complicated by the vicissitudes of the del Carpio collection and its barely traceable dispersal among various members of the family and their heirs.17 In the case of the picture entitled Parnassus, attributed to Perino del Vaga, the identification seems, however, convincing. Purchased between 1649 and 1653 in London by Alonso de Cardenas, Spanish Ambassador, on the commission of the Marqués del Carpio, it came, with many other significant works, from the collection of Charles I of England. The painting is documented in the collection of Don Luis’s son and heir, Gaspar de Haro, Marqués de Eliche, and later appears in Baron Wiser’s inventory as Parnassus by Perino del Vaga and was so catalogued first in the gallery at Mannheim and then at Munich.18 It seems that this was also the fate of the famous equestrian portrait of Count-Duke Olivares in Schleissheim previously attributed to Velázquez, already associated with the collection of the Marqués del Carpio on the basis of a note in the 1651 del Carpio inventory (no.240): ‘. . . retrato del Conde Duque armado [. . .] en un cavallo blanco copia de Velázquez de la mano de Juan Batista Maço . . .’. Wiser’s inventory describes it as the work of Velázquez (‘conde duca d’Olivares a cavallo’), an attribution pre­viously unrecorded.19 It appears that Velázquez’s Portrait of a man bought by Wiser in Madrid in 1694 for Johann Wilhelm, Elector Palatine, which ended up with the Düsseldorf picture gallery in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich, came from the 7th Marqués del Carpio’s collection (sales of 1690 and 1694).20 His vast collection was dispersed following his death in 1687, and between 1694 and 1697 passed partly to other branches of the family, while part was sold at auction in Madrid. The portion that remained in Italy left the family. In spite of numerous inventories it is almost impos­sible to determine what Baron Wiser managed to obtain from this collection either for himself or for the Elector Palatine.
Documentary evidence shows that during his stay in Spain (1691–95) Wiser was in regular contact with Luca Giordano, who from 1692 worked in Madrid as Charles II’s court painter. Numerous paintings by Giordano were acquired by the Elector Palatine through Wiser’s mediation and around twenty-one were in the picture gallery at Düsseldorf. Wiser frequently reported his visits to the artist’s workshop, judging as excellent Giordano’s paintings made ‘all imitatione di’ Paolo Veronese, Guido Reni, etc. He also reported the painter’s expert opinion on the works of art he purchased for the Palatinate court.21 It seems possible that this was when Wiser obtained works by Giordano for his own collection: the Death of Seneca (Fig.1), the Martyrdom of St Sebastian and the Deposition of St Andrew from the Cross are listed in the inventory. Although they bear false Ribera signatures (‘Josepe de Ribera español, F. 1645’ and ‘Josepe de Ribera español, F. 1644’), they are listed in the inventory as the work of Luca Giordano, with the note ‘imitando lo Spagnoletto’ or ‘imitando il Ribera’ (all in the Staatsgalerie, Schleissheim).22 In 1702 the painter returned to Naples, so it is also possible that Wiser purchased them while he was in Naples. Given the close connections between Spain and Naples and the frequent movement of art and artists between them, it is difficult to pinpoint the provenance of works such as, for example, Ribera’s. Nevertheless it seems probable that the paintings of masters with close Spanish connections in Wiser’s collection came from the Iberian Peninsula. The paintings attributed to Antonio Antolínez, ‘Escalante Spaglo’, and Alonso Sanchez, two large-scale paintings by ‘Eugenio Cachese Fiorentino’ (Cajés), the so-far anonymous Martyrdom of St Paul and Martyrdom of St Bartholomew, Children eating a pie (Fig.2) – a work attributed to ‘Diego Morillo quel famoso Pittore Sevillano’ – or the pictures attributed to Velázquez obviously passed into Wiser’s possession in Spain.23 We have no further information as to where they were purchased or from whom.
Even following his posting to Spain in 1695 Baron Wiser continued to play an active role as mediator in his diplomatic duties, nurturing relationships with artists and procuring works of art for the Elector. It is to this role that historians attribute his success with Johann Wilhelm and the Palatinate court. Naturally he himself also benefited from his connections and expertise. We have little information on Wiser’s activity in Parma (1696), Rome (1697–98) and the Netherlands (1702–03). Official letters sent to Düsseldorf inform us that he found pictures both in The Hague and in Amsterdam, which were intended as presents from the Elector to the Bishop-Prince Christian August von Sachsen. In the end, however, instead of the Story of Coriolanus by Jan Brueghel and Godfried Schalcken’s Virgin Mary reading by candlelight, which Wiser had suggested, a devotional work was chosen.24 It is unknown if Wiser acquired works of art for himself during his time in The Hague – his inventory includes an insignificant number of Dutch paintings. Erasmus Quellinus the Younger’s Birth of Christ (Alte Pinakothek) and Adriaen Brouwer’s lost Card players could have been bought in the Netherlands, while he must have obtained the aforementioned pictures by Rubens (Portrait of a youth) and Van Dyck (Portrait of a woman) in Madrid.25
A richer and more varied picture emerges when Wiser’s other postings are taken into account. Both in Rome and Naples (1705–13) he actively sought to make acquaintances with artists and to purchase works of art. In 1697 he reports from Rome of a prayer book ‘mit eigenhändigen Bildern von Perugino’, and sends as a gift a relief bought from Cardinal Ascanio Filomarino (1583–1666), together with chests of precious stones and an antique medallion, despite professing to have no competence in that field and preferring the study of ‘Schildereyen’.26 Wiser has copies made of antique statues in Rome for Johann Wilhelm and is commissioned by the Elector to pay Rosalba Carriera the money owed her for the pictures from the former collection of Ferdinando Carlo Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua. Wiser does not miss the opportunity to express in a letter of 1712 his admiration for the illustrious artist (‘offerendomi sempre disposto al suo piacere e servizio, senza haver la fortuna di conoscere la persona’).27
In 1708 Wiser made contact with the young painter Anton Clemens Lünenschloss of the Palatinate court, who studied first in Rome and then in Naples with Paolo de Matteis, making copies for the Elector.28 This is how a connection was made between Wiser and Paolo de Matteis, who returned to Naples from Paris in 1706, and it was through Wiser that several of the painter’s works reached Düsseldorf, among them a version of the famous Hercules at the crossroads painted in 1712 for Lord Shaftesbury (‘. . . schizzo finito d’un quadro grande che ando in Inghilterra’; Staatsgalerie, Augsburg).29
It appears that most of Wiser’s collection was assembled in Naples. The inventory contains forty-six works by painters coming from or working in that city, in total sixty-two pictures, by masters little known at the time outside Naples and little sought after by collectors. The paintings – some of which are identifiable – attributed in the inventory to Bernardo Cavallino, G.B. Caracciolo, Massimo Stanzione, Cesare Fracanzano, Pacecco de Rosa, Andrea Vaccaro, Bartolomeo Passante, Micco Spadaro, Aniello Falcone, Scipione Compagno and others are important both for the history of collecting and the influence of Neapolitan painting.30 Unfortunately we have been unable to discover any details of the acquisition of certain works, which is not helped by the tumultuous nature of events in Naples, with foreign occupation and frequent changes of ruler. There is little chance of matching Wiser’s paintings to the thousands of entries in Neapolitan inventories frequently of the same subjects. Contemporary sources, travel journals and biographies fail to mention either the Envoy or his collection. Although we may presume that works listed in the inventory as by Caravaggio, Domenichino, Lanfranco and Reni, for example, all of whom worked in Naples, came into Wiser’s possession in Naples, we have little chance of identifying them. The same is true of the sixteenth-century paintings mentioned in the inventory, including works by Raphael, Correggio, Michelangelo, Titian, Tintoretto and Veronese. The frequent reference in the entries to ‘schizzo’ or ‘macchia’ usually indicates that these were small sketches or copies.31
There are also many unanswered questions concerning the later fate of the Wiser collection. We can only assume that on returning to the Palatine from Naples the Baron took the collection, or at least a part of it, with him. Our last piece of information dates from 1716 – when the pictures are also mentioned – and subsequently we learn that the paintings ‘aus der Sammlung des Neuburgischen Barons Heinrich von Wiser’ passed into the Mannheim picture gallery of the Elector Palatine, perhaps in 1750.32 No documents have come to light to explain how and when this happened. It is certain, however, that about ten pictures listed in the incomplete catalogue of the gallery of Mannheim published in 1756 can be identified with paintings in Wiser’s collection. Taking the later 1786 and 1794 catalogues into consideration, their number is multiplied. Thus the major part of the Wiser collection must have passed into the possession of the Elector Palatine before 1756, during the reigns of either Karl Philipp (1716–42) or Karl Theodor (1742–99).33 Subsequently the collection’s destiny became intertwined with the vicissitudes of the collections of the House of Pfalz-­Wittelsbach. With the extinction of the Bavarian line of the family, the Electorship was taken on by the Palatine branch and Karl Theodor moved his seat to the Bavarian capital of Munich. It is to Munich that the works from the Mannheim gallery were taken in 1799 and to Munich that those at Düsseldorf were moved in 1800. This assembly of works of art in Munich – greatly enlarged by the merging of the Zweibrücken inher­itance and the contents of the dissolved monasteries – was frequently moved around the galleries and palaces of Munich, Schleissheim, Augsburg, Aschaffenburg, Burghausen, Speyer, Erlangen and elsewhere.34 Eventually the various provenances of the pictures were forgotten and their original attributions were altered. In spite of the existence of various inventories and catalogues, tracing individual works of art remains difficult. No summary catalogue of the entire holdings of the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen has been published. It is therefore difficult to follow the trail of the Wiser collection, which was absorbed into the gallery at Mannheim and ultimately into the vast collections of Munich. Careful analysis of the inventory makes it possible to identify about one third of the Baron’s paintings in the Bavarian collections – a number which may rise if we take into account works lurking in storage or little-known provincial repositories. We must also bear in mind that in the course of the Napoleonic war and occupation, works originally belonging to Wiser may have been transferred from the collection through exchange, auctions and donations.35 The various signatures and inscriptions found on paintings can be used as a basis for identification. A less common subject, distinctive format or additional information (for example Cavallino’s scenes from Tasso, no.92; or Hercules at the crossroads, no.102) or dimensions can also help. If the fate of the pictures can also be traced in the old inventories or in the 1756 and 1794 catalogues from Mannheim, we can be more certain of iden­tifying them. The incomplete catalogue of 1756 includes the paintings with the same designation of the subject (Erminia) and practically identical measurements as Wiser’s inventory – for example the two scenes from Tasso attributed recently to Cavallino (as opposed to the 1786 and 1794 catalogues, in which they are attributed to Fetti).36
Although approximately a third of Wiser’s collection can be identified, we may assume that the unidentified pictures have been dispersed. There is no sign of them in Germany. But the identification of the Caravaggio listed as no.18 does seem possible: ‘L’Erodiade colla testa di Giovanni Battista ed il manigoldo mano di Michel Angelo da Caravaggio’ can be identified as the painting of that subject in the National Gallery, London (Fig.3), whose provenance has so far been traced back only to 1959, when it was in a French private collection.37 The fact that the dimensions match and that a copy of the painting survived in the monastery of Montevergine, Naples, confirm its iden­tity. Other paintings can be traced back to Naples: no.11 in the Wiser inventory, the Virgin and Child, ‘mano di Giuseppe de Ribera detto il spagnoletto’ may be the picture that passed from Prince Fondi’s collection in Naples to London and thence to the Philadelphia Museum of Art (Fig.4).38 One of Ribera’s large-scale compositions, known in several versions, of the Entombment of Christ was also in Fondi’s collection in Naples and can in all probability be identified with Wiser’s lost Ribera painting mentioned under no.89: ‘Cristo morto colla Madonna S. Giovanni, la Maddalena e due altre mezze figure’.39
However, many of Wiser’s paintings are still elusive, such as Cavallino’s large-scale depictions of St Sebastian and St Bernard, Eugenio Cajés’s Martyrdom of St Paul and Martyrdom of St Bartholomew, Carlo Dolci’s Portrait of a man, Artemisia Gentileschi’s St Mary of Egypt, Pacecco de Rosa’s Moses or the Christ on the Cross and Martyrdom of St Bartholomew attributed to Poussin. It is conceivable that following Wiser’s departure they remained with other works in Italy, probably Naples, and that research of the Neapolitan archives may reveal their fate. Although there is still much to learn about the collection of Baron Wiser, he can already take his rightful place in the rich history of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century art collecting and patronage.

However, many of Wiser’s paintings are still elusive, such as Cavallino’s large-scale depictions of St Sebastian and St Bernard, Eugenio Cajés’s Martyrdom of St Paul and Martyrdom of St Bartholomew, Carlo Dolci’s Portrait of a man, Artemisia Gentileschi’s St Mary of Egypt, Pacecco de Rosa’s Moses or the Christ on the Cross and Martyrdom of St Bartholomew attributed to Poussin. It is conceivable that following Wiser’s departure they remained with other works in Italy, probably Naples, and that research of the Neapolitan archives may reveal their fate. Although there is still much to learn about the collection of Baron Wiser, he can already take his rightful place in the rich history of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century art collecting and patronage.