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Lot Essay
While Professor van Thiel originally published this as the work of Cornelis Cornelisz van Haarlem (1562-1638), connecting it to his painting of the Banquet of the Haarlem Saint George and Saint Hadrian Civic Guards of 1583, the present drawing is now generally regarded as the work of a contemporary Haarlem or alternatively Amsterdam artist. The fashion of the clothing can be dated to the same period, thus the late 16th Century.
The earliest Dutch civic guard portrait date from the mid-16th Century, originating mainly from Haarlem and Amsterdam with Dirck Jacobsz. and Dirck Barentsz. In the 1580s Cornelis Cornelisz. in Haarlem and Cornelis Ketel (1548-1616) and Pieter Pietersz. (1540/1-1603) in Amsterdam further developed this type of portraits. In the early 17th Century this culminated in Frans Hals' famous Banquet of the Officers of the Saint George Civic Guard in Haarlem, dated 1616, now in the Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem. The tradition of painting civic guards remained popular to well into the 18th Century.
The present lot ranks among the very first drawings of this subject together with Hendrick Goltzius' sketch of a civic guard, now in the Rijksprentenkabinet, Amsterdam (E. Reznicek Die Zeichnungen von Hendrick Goltzius, Utrecht, 1961, pp. 122-3, 418, no. 387, illustrated), to which no picture seems to be connected. The present lot is therefore an important art historical and cultural document of the late 16th Century.
The earliest Dutch civic guard portrait date from the mid-16th Century, originating mainly from Haarlem and Amsterdam with Dirck Jacobsz. and Dirck Barentsz. In the 1580s Cornelis Cornelisz. in Haarlem and Cornelis Ketel (1548-1616) and Pieter Pietersz. (1540/1-1603) in Amsterdam further developed this type of portraits. In the early 17th Century this culminated in Frans Hals' famous Banquet of the Officers of the Saint George Civic Guard in Haarlem, dated 1616, now in the Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem. The tradition of painting civic guards remained popular to well into the 18th Century.
The present lot ranks among the very first drawings of this subject together with Hendrick Goltzius' sketch of a civic guard, now in the Rijksprentenkabinet, Amsterdam (E. Reznicek Die Zeichnungen von Hendrick Goltzius, Utrecht, 1961, pp. 122-3, 418, no. 387, illustrated), to which no picture seems to be connected. The present lot is therefore an important art historical and cultural document of the late 16th Century.