The Adoration of the Kings, after Goltzius

This is based on Hendrick Goltzius' engraving of this subject, but of larger format, dated to circa 1593-4 (B. 19; H. 13). Matham was aged eight when in 1578 his mother married Goltzius, who later became his master. Goltzius drew Matham's portrait in 1592, and Matham is known to have copied Goltzius well into the 17th Century. The present drawing may be compared to the artist's drawing in the same technique and handling in the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, F. Stampfle, Netherlandish Drawings of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries and Flemish Drawings of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries in the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York/Princeton, 1991, p. 50, no. 80, illustrated. This drawing was also from the Lagoy collection, engraved by Matham, and of a different size to the original, as in the present lot: thus illustrating that Matham was prepared to copy an original print in a different size to the original.