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Lot Essay
This drawing of five nude soldiers and three semi-nude women has puzzled art historians for almost a century. It was first published by Joseph Schnbrunner and Joseph Meder, who considered it a Netherlandish drawing after an Italian model, and regarded the date inscribed in the upper right corner as authentic. This view was supported in recent times by Colin Eisler and Tilman Falk, Washington, 1985-87, exhib. cat., no. 26. Erwin Panofsky, followed by Wolfgang Stechow and Heinrich Geissler, however, believed the drawing was by a German hand. The 1958 exhibition catalogue places it in the circle of the Swiss artist Jrg Leu, an attribution rejected in the 1985 catalogue, in which Schnbrunner's and Meder's initial idea was taken up again.
More recently Peter Dreyer proposed that the drawing could be by the same hand as a double-sided sheet in the British Museum, catalogued there as Tuscan School, circa 1430 (fig. 1), A.E. Popham and P. Pouncey, Italian Drawings in the Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum, The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, London, 1950, no. 273, pls. CCXXXV-VI.
When examined side by side, the two sheets reveal differences in technique which invalidate the connection. The present drawing is the work of a left-handed artist. The date of 1522 has been inscribed in the same ink as that used in the drawing and appears to rule out an Italian artist. Additional arguments in favour of a Netherlandish origin have been advanced. The sweetness of expression of the faces, along with a certain navety in depiction of the nudes, retaining a medieval prudishness, recalls the style of artists working in the circle of Mabuse. The elaborate tops of the poles evoke the same school.
The subject of the drawing is equally enigmatic. Panofsky, who believed the drawing to be German, suggested a connection with Francesco Colonna's Hypnerotomachia Poliphili which was published in Venice in 1467. In 1499 Aldo Manuzio published a famous edition including 170 woodcuts. These illustrations show scenes of triumph and Panofsky suggested that the drawing might be inspired by one of these, and that it might be a fragment of a larger triumph. The drawing, however, does not seem to provide much evidence to support this view. The composition does not look fragmentary and the figures are not on the move. On the contrary, they stand close to each other but do not interact. They look in different directions, and some are looking up, as though watching something above their heads.
More recently Peter Dreyer proposed that the drawing could be by the same hand as a double-sided sheet in the British Museum, catalogued there as Tuscan School, circa 1430 (fig. 1), A.E. Popham and P. Pouncey, Italian Drawings in the Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum, The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, London, 1950, no. 273, pls. CCXXXV-VI.
When examined side by side, the two sheets reveal differences in technique which invalidate the connection. The present drawing is the work of a left-handed artist. The date of 1522 has been inscribed in the same ink as that used in the drawing and appears to rule out an Italian artist. Additional arguments in favour of a Netherlandish origin have been advanced. The sweetness of expression of the faces, along with a certain navety in depiction of the nudes, retaining a medieval prudishness, recalls the style of artists working in the circle of Mabuse. The elaborate tops of the poles evoke the same school.
The subject of the drawing is equally enigmatic. Panofsky, who believed the drawing to be German, suggested a connection with Francesco Colonna's Hypnerotomachia Poliphili which was published in Venice in 1467. In 1499 Aldo Manuzio published a famous edition including 170 woodcuts. These illustrations show scenes of triumph and Panofsky suggested that the drawing might be inspired by one of these, and that it might be a fragment of a larger triumph. The drawing, however, does not seem to provide much evidence to support this view. The composition does not look fragmentary and the figures are not on the move. On the contrary, they stand close to each other but do not interact. They look in different directions, and some are looking up, as though watching something above their heads.