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Lot Essay
The rediscovery of this drawing, first published in Jules Guiffrey’s 1882 monograph on Anthony van Dyck, allows us to reconsider its attribution to the artist, rejected in 1962 by Horst Vey on the basis of the reproduction in Guiffrey’s book, and to add a characteristic example of a crabbelingh by Van Dyck to the corpus of his drawings, of which only a dwindling number remain in private hands. In its thin penwork, sharp profiles and generous use of dark wash for the shadow, it can be compared (minus the use of white bodycolour) to a study for a Crucifixion in the British Museum, London, datable to the late 1620s (inv. 1910,0212.207; see Ch. Brown, The Drawings of Anthony van Dyck, exhib. cat. New York, The Pierpont Morgan Library and Fort Worth, The Kimbell Art Museum, 1991, no. 49, ill.). The use of blue paper also points to a date no earlier than Van Dyck’s years in Italy (1621-1627), from where he returned to Antwerp in 1627.
The drawing can be related to a canvas from these years in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (inv. GG 513; see Vey in Van Dyck. A complete catalogue of the paintings, New Haven and London, 2004, no. III.9). In particular, the order in which the three figures are placed, the tender gesture of the Christ Child reaching out to Joseph, the clouds in the background and the drapery at right all suggest the drawing was made as a study for the painting. A drawing in the Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen (inv. kks6578, measuring 153 x 170 cm; fig. 2; see Vey, op. cit., 1962, I, no. 112, II, fig. 155), could well be another sketch for the same composition. The two drawings may even have belonged to the same sheet: the cut lower right corner of the Copenhagen drawing follows the form of the cut upper left corner of the present sheet. A third drawing, little more than a fragment, depicting the Virgin’s head and also reproduced in Guiffrey’s book (p. 81 of the 1896 English edition) and probably also wrongly considered a copy by Vey (op. cit., 1962, p. 182, under no. 112), may be another study related to the same composition. As recorded by Guiffrey, both this small sketch and the one under discussion were once part of the famous collection of the marquis de Chennevières, who also owned a sketch by Van Dyckof the Brazen Serpent, now in the Musée Bonnat, Bayonne (inv. 1431; Vey, op. cit., 1962, I, no. 46, II, fig. 62).
We are grateful to Hanne Kolind Poulsen for her assistance in cataloguing this drawing, and to Christopher Brown for confirming the attribution to the artist and the approximate dating of the sheet.
The drawing can be related to a canvas from these years in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (inv. GG 513; see Vey in Van Dyck. A complete catalogue of the paintings, New Haven and London, 2004, no. III.9). In particular, the order in which the three figures are placed, the tender gesture of the Christ Child reaching out to Joseph, the clouds in the background and the drapery at right all suggest the drawing was made as a study for the painting. A drawing in the Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen (inv. kks6578, measuring 153 x 170 cm; fig. 2; see Vey, op. cit., 1962, I, no. 112, II, fig. 155), could well be another sketch for the same composition. The two drawings may even have belonged to the same sheet: the cut lower right corner of the Copenhagen drawing follows the form of the cut upper left corner of the present sheet. A third drawing, little more than a fragment, depicting the Virgin’s head and also reproduced in Guiffrey’s book (p. 81 of the 1896 English edition) and probably also wrongly considered a copy by Vey (op. cit., 1962, p. 182, under no. 112), may be another study related to the same composition. As recorded by Guiffrey, both this small sketch and the one under discussion were once part of the famous collection of the marquis de Chennevières, who also owned a sketch by Van Dyckof the Brazen Serpent, now in the Musée Bonnat, Bayonne (inv. 1431; Vey, op. cit., 1962, I, no. 46, II, fig. 62).
We are grateful to Hanne Kolind Poulsen for her assistance in cataloguing this drawing, and to Christopher Brown for confirming the attribution to the artist and the approximate dating of the sheet.