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Lot Essay
This unpublished work is thought to be a study for the male head in the rear centre of van Dyck's Christ crowned with Thorns formerly in the Kaiser-Friedrich Museum, Berlin (destroyed in World War II). Two other oil studies of heads that relate to the picture are known: a study, on panel, for the man kneeling down wearing a headscarf (Sotheby's, New York, 21 May 1998), and a sketch for the man on the left with a raised hand, formerly in the Minneapolis Institute of Art (Christie's, New York, 10 October 1990, lot 52a), although the attributions for both have recently been questioned by Nora de Poorter (see S.J. Barnes et al, Van Dyck - A Complete Catalogue of the Paintings, New Haven, 2004, p. 38, under no. I.22). The author further points to the relationship between the bearded man and the Thomas in the Apostle Series (ibid., p. 75, no. I.63), which employs the same head but in reverse.
There are notable differences between this and the Berlin head, especially in the hair and beard, that would seem to rule out the possiblility that the present work is a partial copy or ricordo of the finished picture. However, they do correspond very closely in terms of their expression - the downward gaze and the raised left eyebrow - and the fall of light, making it entirely plausible that van Dyck used the present study for the Berlin picture. Typically for van Dyck's studies of this kind, the paint appears to have been applied rapidly and with a loaded brush. This is most noticeable in the areas of impasto used by the artist to pick out highlights in the forehead, hair and nose.
There are notable differences between this and the Berlin head, especially in the hair and beard, that would seem to rule out the possiblility that the present work is a partial copy or ricordo of the finished picture. However, they do correspond very closely in terms of their expression - the downward gaze and the raised left eyebrow - and the fall of light, making it entirely plausible that van Dyck used the present study for the Berlin picture. Typically for van Dyck's studies of this kind, the paint appears to have been applied rapidly and with a loaded brush. This is most noticeable in the areas of impasto used by the artist to pick out highlights in the forehead, hair and nose.