Sir Anthony Van Dyck (Antwerp 1599-1641 London)

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OLD MASTER DRAWINGS FROM THE COLLECTION OF THE LATE MICHAEL JAFFÉ (LOTS 335-344) When summarising Michael Jaffé's career for his obituary in the Burlington Magazine in 1998, Duncan Robinson observed that his achievements could be appreciated in four distinct areas: as 'a collector, a connoisseur, a teacher and a museum director, of equal distinction in each category' (Burlington Magazine, CXL, February 1998, p. 123). After studying at Eton, King's College, Cambridge, and the Courtauld Institute, Professor Jaffé became Assistant Lecturer in Fine Arts at Cambridge in 1956. Here he established a reputation for passionate, inspiring teaching, often given through object-based classes in the Fitzwilliam Museum. In 1960 he succeeded in convincing the University to establish an undergraduate course in History of Art, thereby laying the foundations for the great reputation which Cambridge has enjoyed in this area ever since. As Director of the Fitzwilliam Museum, from 1973 until his retirement in 1990, his tenure was characterised by energy and vision, both in the enrichment of the Museum's collection and in the display of that collection. Alongside his teaching and his work at the Museum, he published a series of highly-respected books and articles, including Rubens and Italy (1977), the catalogue for the landmark exhibition on Jacob Jordaens at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa (1968-9) and, at the end of his career, the authoritative catalogues of the Italian and Northern European old master drawings in the Devonshire Collection at Chatsworth. The present selection of drawings is notable not only for including, unsurprisingly, sheets attributed to Rubens, his pupils and his followers, but also for the quality of the provenance of many of the drawings, which bear stamps from some of the most prestigious collections of old master drawings. The Psyche welcomed to Olympus also has an extensive inscription on the verso by Jonathan Richardson the Younger, while the striking Head of a Sphinx bears an inscription by the elder Richardson which enables its provenance to be traced back to the collection of Lord Somers and, by implication, that of Padre Sebastiano Resta. Three were once part of P.H. Lankrink's collection, while others come from the collections of Lely and Lawrence. Professor Jaffé also appreciated the attributional challenges posed by some of the drawings, with extensive inscriptions in his hand on a number of the mounts, most notably those of The Agony in the Garden (lot 337) and Job (lot 344).

Sir Anthony Van Dyck (Antwerp 1599-1641 London)

Studies of the Christ Child and St Catherine of Alexandria

Details

Sir Anthony Van Dyck (Antwerp 1599-1641 London)
Studies of the Christ Child and St Catherine of Alexandria
pen and brown ink, brown ink framing lines, on two joined sheets, partly silhouetted and made up
3¼ x 7¼ in. (8.2 x 18.4 cm.) (backing sheet)

Provenance

Philip Hofer, according to Müller Hofstede, 1973, infra.

Literature

H. Vey, Die Zeichnungen Anton van Dycks, Brussels, 1962, I, no. 58 (as a copy).
J. Müller Hofstede, 'New Drawings by Van Dyck', Master Drawings, XI, 1973, p. 156, no. 3, pl. 20, n. 14.
C. van Hasselt, Flemish Drawings of the Seventeenth Century from the Collection of Frits Lugt, Institut Néerlandais, Paris, exhib. cat., London, Victoria and Albert Museum, and other locations, 1972, under no. 27.
J. Rupert Martin and G. Feigenbaum, Van Dyck as a Religious Artist, exhib. cat., Princeton, University Art Museum, 1979, p. 85.
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, 1991, under no. 268.
M. Morgan Grasselli (ed.), The Touch of the Artist: Master Drawings from the Woodner Collections, exhib. cat., Washington, 1995, under no. 65, pp. 243 and 245, n. 5.
C. Brown, Van Dyck: 1599-1641, exhib. cat., London, 1999, p. 116, under no. 12, n. 2.
M. Jaffé, The Devonshire Collection of Northern European Drawings, Turin, 2002, p. 67, under no. 983.
N. de Poorter, in S.J. Barnes et al., Van Dyck: A complete catalogue of the paintings, New Haven and London, 2004, under no. I.30.

Exhibited

Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, Seventeenth Century Flemish Drawings and Oil Sketches, 1958, no. 12.
King's Lynn, The Fermoy Art Gallery, Drawings by the Masters from the 15th to the 20th Century, 1969, no. 28.

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Lot Essay

A preparatory study, from a late stage in the compositional process, for the Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine (circa 1618-20; Madrid, Prado). It is possible to reconstruct the young Van Dyck's development of this composition through a series of drawings, including in order of execution a study in the Institut Néerlandais, Paris, a drawing formerly in Bremen, a drawing in the Pierpont Morgan Library and Museum, a sheet formerly at Chatsworth and now in the Woodner Collection at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, a drawing on the Berlin art market in 1908 and, finally, a sketch on the verso of a sheet at the Courtauld Institute (D.1952.RW.2365.v), from which the positions of the key figures were translated into the finished painting. Although rejected by Vey (op. cit.), the drawing has been broadly accepted by scholars since the article by Müller Hofstede (op. cit.).

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