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Lot Essay
The sitter, Aernout van Buchel, was also known by the Latinised form of his name, Arnoldus Buchelius. A lawyer and art collector with extensive literary interests, he was prominent in artistic circles in Utrecht and was a particuarly close friend of de Passe, of whose prints he possessed a large collection. The two men had already met several times before de Passe moved to Utrecht in around 1611, but this move cemented their friendship and van Buchel brought de Passe into the local circle of artists, dealers and connoisseurs.
Three years later in 1614, de Passe acknowledged their friendship by executing a portrait print of van Buchel, for which the present drawing is the final preparatory study, based on an oil portrait by Paulus Moreelse (1571-1638) from 1610 (Centraal Museum, Utrecht; L. Helmus, Schilderkunst tot 1850: De verzamelingen van het Centraal Museum Utrecht, Utrecht, 1999, no. 451). Van Buchel returned the compliment some years later by including a biography of de Passe in his Vitae eruditorum Belgicorum ordine alphabetico (compiled after 1623; Universiteitsbibliotheek, Utrecht, Ms. 838; see Veldman, op. cit., fig. 1). The two men also worked together: van Buchel provided Latin verses for many of de Passe's prints and eulogies for his books of prints from shortly after de Passe's arrival in Utrecht until the late 1630s. The present drawing, and the print made from it, are therefore not only a tribute from an artist to a connoisseur, and from one colleague to another, but also a testament of a close and lasting friendship.
In collaboration with G.J. Hoogewerff I.Q. van Regteren Altena, published the same year he acquired the present drawing a book on Buchelius, Arnoldus Buchelius 'Res pictoriae'; aanteekeningen over kunstenaars en kunstwerken voorkomende in zijn Diarum, Notae quotidianae, en Descriptio urbis Ultrajectinae (1583-16390), The Hague, 1928. The drawing of a hand by Goltzius from the van Regteren Altena collection, sold at Christie's, London, 10 July 2014, lot 22, was identified by Ilja Veldman as having probably belonged to van Buchel.
Fig 1. Crispijn de Passe, Portrait of Aernout van Buchel, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum.
Three years later in 1614, de Passe acknowledged their friendship by executing a portrait print of van Buchel, for which the present drawing is the final preparatory study, based on an oil portrait by Paulus Moreelse (1571-1638) from 1610 (Centraal Museum, Utrecht; L. Helmus, Schilderkunst tot 1850: De verzamelingen van het Centraal Museum Utrecht, Utrecht, 1999, no. 451). Van Buchel returned the compliment some years later by including a biography of de Passe in his Vitae eruditorum Belgicorum ordine alphabetico (compiled after 1623; Universiteitsbibliotheek, Utrecht, Ms. 838; see Veldman, op. cit., fig. 1). The two men also worked together: van Buchel provided Latin verses for many of de Passe's prints and eulogies for his books of prints from shortly after de Passe's arrival in Utrecht until the late 1630s. The present drawing, and the print made from it, are therefore not only a tribute from an artist to a connoisseur, and from one colleague to another, but also a testament of a close and lasting friendship.
In collaboration with G.J. Hoogewerff I.Q. van Regteren Altena, published the same year he acquired the present drawing a book on Buchelius, Arnoldus Buchelius 'Res pictoriae'; aanteekeningen over kunstenaars en kunstwerken voorkomende in zijn Diarum, Notae quotidianae, en Descriptio urbis Ultrajectinae (1583-16390), The Hague, 1928. The drawing of a hand by Goltzius from the van Regteren Altena collection, sold at Christie's, London, 10 July 2014, lot 22, was identified by Ilja Veldman as having probably belonged to van Buchel.
Fig 1. Crispijn de Passe, Portrait of Aernout van Buchel, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum.