Lot Essay
Wolfgang Wegner was the first to recognize this drawing as an early drawing by Van Vianen in 1973. The composition was used in a bronze plaquette executed by Van Vianen or his workshop, which probably dates from the early 17th Century (J.W. Frederiks, Dutch Silver, Embossed Ecclesiastical and Secular Plates from the Renaissance to the End of the 18th Century, The Hague, 1961, 4, no. 81, and Ter Molen, op.cit., no. 132), now in a private collection. A copy after the present lot is in the Kupferstichkabinett, Dresden (inv. no. 36). This design may be compared to that in the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris (Gerszi, op.cit., p. 211, no. 70, fig. 77; Ter Molen, op.cit., no. 194), which may be dated circa 1607, and which was used for a silver Tazza, now in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (Ter Molen, op.cit., no. 20).