Hagar and the angel

Robust figures in contorted poses and heavy washes indicating shadow, accentuated by groupings of parallel hatching, are the hallmarks of the manner of Speckaert. An enigmatic artist about whom little is known, he was nevertheless very influential among Northern artists present in Rome in the 1570s and 1580s, among them Hans von Aachen, Hendrick de Clerck and Joseph Heintz (W.T. Kloek, ‘Hans Speckaert and the many copies after his drawings’, in Bollettino d’arte, vol. C, 1999, Supplemento, pp. 149-160; S. Alsteens in Raphael to Renoir. Drawings from the Collection of Jean Bonna, exhib. cat., New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Edinburgh, National Gallery of Scotland, 2009, p. 90, under no. 42). A small number of securely attributed works made as print models allow the attribution of other works, including this unpublished sheet, illustrating Genesis 21, verses 15-19. It can be compared to a drawing depicting the earlier episodes from the story of Hagar, including her expulsion, in the collection of Jean Bonna (Alsteens, op. cit., no. 42, ill.).