watermark: none

...; ? collection Mattheus Verheyden (1700-77), The Hague;¹¹According to an inscription on the verso of other drawings from the same convolute. ...; 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-00-425

The present drawing was once pasted on fol. 36 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 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).

Alsteen’s opinion is supported by the resemblance to the museum’s similar-sized Study of a Right Hand (inv. no. RP-T-1950-101, used for Jonson van Ceulen’s painted Portrait of Burgomaster Jan Cornelisz Geelvinck (1621-1689), dated 1646, on display in the Amsterdam Museum (inv. no. SZ 7347).¹³¹³Previously on loan to the Rijksmuseum, inv. no. SK-C-1179); see P.J.J. van Thiel et al., All the Paintings of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam: A Completely Illustrated Catalogue, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1976, p. 308 (illus.). It is executed in a smoother manner but features analogies, for example the white hatching and the lower contour of the hand, indicating shade in a minimalistic way. In its more nuanced rendering, the drawing can be likened to other autograph hand studies by the artist, such as Study of the Hands of a Lady of the Raphoen Family, of circa 1646, in the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles (inv. no. 91.GB.57).¹⁴¹⁴S. Alsteens and A. Eaker (eds.), Van Dyck: The Anatomy of Portraiture, exh. cat. New York (Frick Collection) 2016, no. 102. As in the study used for the hand of Burgomaster Geelvinck, where the position of the thumb is varied, the present drawing offers an alternative below, which shows the sitter’s white cuff. So far, no fully corresponding detail has been found in a painting by the elder Jonson van Ceulen, but the drawing might well have been done in preparation for one of his group portraits.

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 (nn. 6, 9) (as by Jonson van Ceulen I)

A. Stefes, 2019, 'attributed to 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/200148168