Lempertz to show both faces of Koerbecke altarpiece wing together

Lempertz is scheduled to sell Old Masters and nineteenth-century works in Cologne on 21 November 2026, with Part I due to begin at 11.30am and Part II at 2pm. Its principal announced highlight is a pair of paintings by the Westphalian late-Gothic artist Johann Koerbecke that the auction house says will be shown together publicly for the first time since 1936.

According to Lempertz, ‘The Annunciation’ and ‘The Vision of Saint Bernard’ were the two painted sides of a wing from a smaller retable, or altarpiece structure, made for the Cistercian abbey of Marienfeld. The panel was split in 1936, separating the works. Lempertz says ‘The Annunciation’ was most recently displayed at Kolumba, the art museum of the Archdiocese of Cologne, while ‘The Vision of Saint Bernard’ was at the Bavarian State Painting Collections in Munich.

The paintings are Lots 1005 and 1006, both oil on oak and both estimated at €200,000-€300,000. Those are pre-sale estimates, not prices achieved. The supplied material does not identify the consignor, seller, intermediary or the circumstances by which the paintings entered the sale.

Among other selected offerings announced by Lempertz are Ambrosius Benson’s small ‘Madonna and Child’, Lot 1012, estimated at €220,000-€280,000, and Jacob Philipp Hackert’s 1805 ‘Lago di Bientina and Monte Carlo’, Lot 1056, estimated at €70,000-€90,000.

A separate catalogue entry resolves an inconsistency in the release concerning Marten van Cleve’s ‘Peasant Wedding in the Open Air’. Although the release’s image caption gives Lot 1028, its text and the dedicated entry identify it as Lot 1023, with an estimate of €120,000-€130,000. The entry records Belgian private-collection provenance and a certificate by Joost Vander Auwera, dated 26 January 2026. Lempertz says Vander Auwera found a decisive underdrawing and pentimenti, changes made during painting, which in his view support an attribution to van Cleve himself. That remains the named specialist’s assessment rather than an independently published technical finding.