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Lot Essay
The drawings are based on Raphael's spandrel decorations for the Loggia di Psyche in the Villa Farnesina, Rome. The spandrel frescoes, executed for Agostino Chigi, were inspired by the story of Psyche as told in The Golden Ass by Apuleius, and painted in 1517 by Raphael's pupils including Francesco Penni and Giulio Romano. The frescoes, like much of the Farnesina's decoration, were copied by many artists visiting Rome throughout the centuries. When Goethe visited the Farnesina with Angelika Kauffmann on 15 July 1787, he remembered all the details from the many prints after the frescoes.
Van Lint travelled from Antwerp to Italy just after 1633. He is known to have done a number of copies after the antique and after Renaissance masters. These include a drawing after the statue of the Tigris, (Museum Plantin Moretus, Antwerp), two copies drawn from different angles after the Farnese Hercules, both dated 1639 (Fondation Custodia, Paris, C. van Hasselt, Flemish Drawings of the Seventeenth Century, exhibition catalogue, London, Paris, Berne, Brussels, 1972, no. 48, plate 84, and in the National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh, K. Andrews, Catalogue of Netherlandish Drawings, Edinburgh, 1985, p. 47, no. RSA61, fig. 313), as well as three copies drawn from different angles after the Medici Venus (one in the Fondation Custodia, Paris, C. van Hasselt, op.cit., no. 313; two in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Flemish Drawings & Prints of the XVIIth Century, exhibition catalogue, New York, 1982, nos. 15-16). The latter three drawings are all dated 1640 and bear the same moralizing couplet as the present drawings: 'Die hier te veele van mij hiel verloor gesontheijt goedt en ziel' (who loved me too much here, lost health, good and sole).
A drawing of The Fall of Phaeton, signed and dated 1639, is in the Collection de Grez, Brussels, catalogue, 1913, no. 2326. A drawing of a lion attacking a horse after Giambologna is in the Louvre, Paris, F. Lugt, Ecole Flamande, I, 1949, no. 754.
Further drawings after earlier prototypes include that of Apollo and Marsyas, signed and dated 1639, anon. sale, Drouot, Paris, 20 October 1988, lot 38, illustrated, and five studies at Sotheby's, London, 14 April 1986, lot 272.
A number of drawings and pictures by Pieter van Lint are illustrated by Andrea Busiri Vici, Peter, Hendrik e Giacomo van Lint, Rome, 1987. So far Van Lint was thought to have returned from Italy by 1640, but the dating on two of the present drawings would seem to indicate that he was still in Rome in 1641, although he could have drawn these after prints.
Van Lint travelled from Antwerp to Italy just after 1633. He is known to have done a number of copies after the antique and after Renaissance masters. These include a drawing after the statue of the Tigris, (Museum Plantin Moretus, Antwerp), two copies drawn from different angles after the Farnese Hercules, both dated 1639 (Fondation Custodia, Paris, C. van Hasselt, Flemish Drawings of the Seventeenth Century, exhibition catalogue, London, Paris, Berne, Brussels, 1972, no. 48, plate 84, and in the National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh, K. Andrews, Catalogue of Netherlandish Drawings, Edinburgh, 1985, p. 47, no. RSA61, fig. 313), as well as three copies drawn from different angles after the Medici Venus (one in the Fondation Custodia, Paris, C. van Hasselt, op.cit., no. 313; two in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Flemish Drawings & Prints of the XVIIth Century, exhibition catalogue, New York, 1982, nos. 15-16). The latter three drawings are all dated 1640 and bear the same moralizing couplet as the present drawings: 'Die hier te veele van mij hiel verloor gesontheijt goedt en ziel' (who loved me too much here, lost health, good and sole).
A drawing of The Fall of Phaeton, signed and dated 1639, is in the Collection de Grez, Brussels, catalogue, 1913, no. 2326. A drawing of a lion attacking a horse after Giambologna is in the Louvre, Paris, F. Lugt, Ecole Flamande, I, 1949, no. 754.
Further drawings after earlier prototypes include that of Apollo and Marsyas, signed and dated 1639, anon. sale, Drouot, Paris, 20 October 1988, lot 38, illustrated, and five studies at Sotheby's, London, 14 April 1986, lot 272.
A number of drawings and pictures by Pieter van Lint are illustrated by Andrea Busiri Vici, Peter, Hendrik e Giacomo van Lint, Rome, 1987. So far Van Lint was thought to have returned from Italy by 1640, but the dating on two of the present drawings would seem to indicate that he was still in Rome in 1641, although he could have drawn these after prints.