watermark: none

...; ? collection Mattheus Verheyden (1700-77), The Hague;¹¹According to an inscription on the verso of other drawings from the same group. ...; sale, Stephen Hendrik de la Sablonière (1825-88, Kampen) and Cornelius Ekama (1824-91, Haarlem), Amsterdam (F. Muller), 30 June 1891, no. 167, fl. 195, to the dealer H.J. Valk (‘Valk S’), probably for Carl Valentin Schöffer (1841-1915), Amsterdam and Scheveningen;²²Copy RKD; according to the annotation in the sale catalogue. his sale, Amsterdam (F. Muller), 30 May 1893 sqq., no. 283, fl. 206, to the dealer H.J. Valk, Amsterdam;³³Copy RKD. from whom, fl. 236.60, to the museum (L. 2228), 1894

Object number: RP-T-00-422

The present drawing was once pasted on fol. 33 of the so-called ‘Netscher Album’ (inv. no. BI-1894-3720), before being detached and mounted separately, probably circa 1973-75.⁷⁷The first set of ‘00’-numbers in the inventory book (inv. nos. RP-T-00-1 to RP-T-00-599) began to be assigned in 1973; inv. nos. RP-T-00-513 to RP-T-00-576 were retroactively inventoried in 1975. It belonged to a group of twelve drawings on blue paper in the album, mostly studies of hands. Ten of these, including the present drawing, might once have belonged to a folder formed by inv. no. RP-T-00-453, which was numbered ‘11’ and the verso of which was inscribed by Mattheus Verheyden (1700-1777) ‘Tien Bladen Handen door A.V. Dijck, Janson van Ceulen, G. Schalken, &c’. The drawings contained in the folder ‘No 11’ were most likely the same ten that were once pasted in consecutive order on fols. 27-36 of the Rijksmuseum’s Netscher Album.⁸⁸Their present inv. nos. are RP-T-00-449, RP-T-00-451, RP-T-00-454, RP-T-00-450, RP-T-00-422, RP-T-00-427, RP-T-00-424, RP-T-00-426, RP-T-00-1155, RP-T-00-425.

J.W. Niemeijer, in his notes on the Netscher Album,⁹⁹RMA, documentation (c. 1970). assigned seven of the ten studies – including the present sheet – to Anthony van Dyck (1599-1640). The three exceptions were inv. nos. RP-T-00-1155, considered as ‘Anonymous, eighteenth-century’,¹⁰¹⁰In Verheyden’s collection, it may have passed as by Schalcken. and RP-T-00-453 and RP-T-00-454, both given to Cornelis Jonson van Ceulen I. Van Dyck is no longer considered to be a viable candidate for any of the seven as he hardly left any detail studies for portraits and only very few genuine hand studies,¹¹¹¹S. Alsteens and A. Eaker (eds.), Van Dyck: The Anatomy of Portraiture, exh. cat. New York (Frick Collection) 2016, pp. 5-6, 268 (text by Alsteens). but Alsteens – although not explicitly mentioning the present sheet – has reconsidered the association with Cornelis Jonson van Ceulen.¹²¹²Ibid., pp. 268-69, an idea previously rejected in M. Schapelhouman and P. Schatborn, Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam: Artists Born between 1580 and 1600, 2 vols., coll. cat. Amsterdam 1998, I, under no. 219, p. 104 (n. 4).

The present work is reminiscent of the Study of the Hands of a Woman of the Raphoen Family_ (c. 1646) in the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles (inv. no. 91.GB.57).¹³¹³S. Alsteens and A. Eaker (eds.), Van Dyck: The Anatomy of Portraiture, exh. cat. New York (Frick Collection) 2016, no. 102. Among the museum’s group of hand studies, it comes close to inv. no. RP-T-00-454, with its sharply indicated contours and dense, multi-directional hatching, creating a dark background against which the hand is silhouetted. For the modelling of fabric, the drawing may also be compared with the artist’s presumed Self-portrait of the early 1650s in the British Museum, London (inv. no. 1856,0112.379). Unfortunately, no corresponding painting for the drawing is known at present.

Annemarie Stefes, 2019

S. Alsteens and A. Eaker (eds.), Van Dyck: The Anatomy of Portraiture, exh. cat. New York (Frick Collection) 2016, pp. 268-69 (n. 6) (as by Jonson van Ceulen I)

A. Stefes, 2019, 'possibly Cornelis (I) Jonson van Ceulen, _, c. 1640 - c. 1660', in J. Turner (ed.), _Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200148165