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-00-449(R)

The present drawing was pasted on fol. 28 of the so-called ‘Netscher Album’ (inv. no. BI-1894-3720), before it was 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) was started to be given 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, mostly hand studies, assumed to have originated from the collection of Mattheus Verheyden.⁸⁸Two of these sheets, inv. no. RP-T-00-452 and RP-T-00-453, were used as folders for drawings, as is suggested by their respective verso inscription by Verheyden. They were been pasted in consecutive order on fols. 27-36 of the‘Netscher Album’.⁹⁹Their 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,¹⁰¹⁰RMA, 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’,¹¹¹¹In Verheyden’s collection, it may have passed as by Schalcken. and RP-T-00-453 and RP-T-00-454, both of which were 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,¹²¹²S. 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.¹³¹³Ibid., 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).

Among the ‘Netscher-Album’ group, the present drawing and three other double-sided sheets – inv. nos. RP-T-00-450(R), RP-T-00-451(R) and RP-T-00-452(R) – stand out as being decidedly more vigorously drawn, on both their rectos and versos. Moreover, they betray stylistic links with autograph studies by Jonson van Ceulen I, such as his study of the hand of Burgomaster Geelvinck_ of circa 1646 (inv. no. RP-T-1950-101, with its short strokes of parallel hatching and undulating lines in white chalk highlighting the cuffs.

Stylistically, however, there is a lack of consistency within the ‘Netscher Album’ group, as was already alluded to by Verheyden’s inscription on the verso of inv. no. RP-T-00-435. According to him, the group consisted of ‘Ten sheets hands by A. van Dyck, Janson van Ceulen, G. Schalken etc.’ (‘Tien Bladen Handen: door A.V. Dijck: / Janson van Ceulen, G. Schalken, &c’). Among the other artists whose portraits feature comparable motifs is Pieter Nason (1612-c. 1688/90), as in his Portrait of a Man with its hand similar to the right hand in the present recto study.¹⁴¹⁴Sale, London (Sotheby’s), 16 April 1997, no. 40. Generally, these studies of hands call for further research.

Annemarie Stefes, 2019

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) (as not by Jonson van Ceulen I); 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, 'circle of 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/200153330