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Lot Essay
Similar to a drawing of a Girl with long plaits in the Öffentliche Kunstsammlung, Basel (inv. no. U.X.27), from a series of drawings of actors and other figures datable to 1519/20, H.C. von Tavel, op. cit., nos. 202-211. The strong profile, with a high rounded forehead leading vertically to a bridge-less nose, is also found in Deutsch's graphic work, for example the first plate of the Wise and Foolish Virgins series of engravings (Hollstein 1).
Despite the similarities of the short regular hatching and the handling of the fall of the drapery between the Bodmer drawing and the Girl with long plaits in Basel, the ideogram dagger in the present sheet might indicate a slightly earlier date. Deutsch seems to have started to embellish his signature with ribbons after about 1515, and to have moved from pointed to more rounded blades from about 1517, allowing us to suggest the intervening period for the genesis of the Bodmer drawing. The second decade of the 16th Century was the most prolific of Deutsch's career as an artist: the majority of his drawings and all his known paintings date from the period. The themes, like those of his close contemporary Urs Graf, show the influence of his experiences as a mercenary in Italy and France, and also the development of the Protestant Reformation. This is most notable in the great mural cycle of The Dance of Death on the facade of the Franziskanerkirche in Bern, destroyed in 1660 but known through gouache copies by Albrecht Kauw, now in the Kunstmuseum, Bern. In the 1520's Deutsch's output decreased as he found himself more closely involved with the Reformation, as governor of Erlach, author of anti-clerical tracts, and finally as a member of the governing Small Council of Bern.
Despite the similarities of the short regular hatching and the handling of the fall of the drapery between the Bodmer drawing and the Girl with long plaits in Basel, the ideogram dagger in the present sheet might indicate a slightly earlier date. Deutsch seems to have started to embellish his signature with ribbons after about 1515, and to have moved from pointed to more rounded blades from about 1517, allowing us to suggest the intervening period for the genesis of the Bodmer drawing. The second decade of the 16th Century was the most prolific of Deutsch's career as an artist: the majority of his drawings and all his known paintings date from the period. The themes, like those of his close contemporary Urs Graf, show the influence of his experiences as a mercenary in Italy and France, and also the development of the Protestant Reformation. This is most notable in the great mural cycle of The Dance of Death on the facade of the Franziskanerkirche in Bern, destroyed in 1660 but known through gouache copies by Albrecht Kauw, now in the Kunstmuseum, Bern. In the 1520's Deutsch's output decreased as he found himself more closely involved with the Reformation, as governor of Erlach, author of anti-clerical tracts, and finally as a member of the governing Small Council of Bern.