France Declares Newly Discovered Hans Baldung Grien Silverpoint Portrait a National Treasure, Postponing Paris Auction
A small, exquisitely worked drawing has abruptly become a matter of state interest in France. A newly identified silverpoint portrait attributed to German artist Hans Baldung Grien (c. 1484–1545) has been classified a National Treasure by France’s Ministry of Culture, a designation that carries a 30-month export ban and has effectively stopped a planned sale in Paris.
The work was due to be offered at a live auction at Hôtel Drouot by Beaussant Lefèvre & Associés, in collaboration with Cabinet de Bayser. But the auction house announced this morning that the sale would be postponed, saying an eleventh-hour ruling “compromises the possibility of conducting the sale under normal conditions.”
The drawing — described as postcard-sized — is a portrait of Susanna Pfeffering, identified as a well-to-do woman from Strasbourg. Rendered in silverpoint, a demanding technique that requires a steady hand and allows little correction, the image was expected by specialists to bring $3.5 million.
Its sudden prominence is tied not only to its quality but also to its rarity. Art historians generally credit Baldung with roughly 250 drawings, with relatively few in private hands. Even more scarce are his silverpoint works: only 12 are known, and none are believed to be privately owned. The medium’s fragility and the artist’s limited output have made such sheets especially coveted by museums and collectors.
The portrait surfaced last year during the cataloging of the Pfeffering family art collection, which had preserved the work for roughly five centuries without recognizing its authorship. Family tradition had suggested the drawing might be by another Northern Renaissance master, Hans Holbein the Younger. Closer study shifted that view.
Patrick de Bayser, co-founder of Cabinet de Bayser, attributed the sheet to Baldung, an assessment later confirmed by Christof Metzger, chief curator of graphic arts at the Albertina in Vienna, and Dorit Schäfer, head of prints and drawings at the Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe — an institution that mounted a significant Baldung exhibition in 2019.
The French state’s intervention followed a routine but consequential step in the sales process. The sellers requested an export license last November, prompting review by the French Advisory Commission on National Treasures. The commission recommended that the drawing be classified as a National Treasure, and the Ministry of Culture soon agreed — a move that prevents the work from leaving France for 30 months while the state has the opportunity to pursue an acquisition.
In a statement, auctioneer Arthur De Moras indicated that the owners intend to slow the process and negotiate privately. “Given the strong interest expressed by the French Ministry of Culture in its acquisition, and despite the interest shown by several institutions and international collectors, the sellers wish to take the necessary time to pursue negotiations in a private context,” he said.
The episode underscores how quickly a rediscovered work on paper can shift from connoisseurship to cultural policy. For France, the classification signals that the drawing is considered significant enough to merit protection — and potentially a place in a public collection — rather than being dispersed through the international market.
