watermark: none

...; ? collection Mattheus Verheyden (1700-77), The Hague;¹¹According to an inscription on the verso. ...; 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-00-452(R)

The present drawing was once pasted on fol. 32 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. Two of these, the present drawing and inv. no. RP-T-00-453, bear a verso inscription by Mattheus Verheyden (1700-1777), in each case written to the right of a vertical fold. From this, it can be assumed that the sheet might have served as a folder numbered ‘13’, protecting a group of studies of hands (‘13 dito blade met handen’). The ‘ditto’ possibly refers to the content of a similar folder numbered ‘12’, or to the one numbered ‘11’, as annotated on the verso of inv. no. RP-T-00-453, which contained ten hand studies (‘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 for the group given to Van Dyck.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).

Jonson van Ceulen I did indeed draw detailed studies of hands, including inv. no. RP-T-1950-101, identified by its autograph inscription as a study of the hand of Jan Cornelisz Geelvinck (1621-1689), and Studies of Two Female Hands in the Musée de Grenoble (inv. no. MG D 230).¹³¹³D. Mandrella, with C. Tainturier, La Pointe et l’ombre: Dessins nordiques du Musée de Grenoble: XVIe-XVIIe siècle, exh. cat. Grenoble (Musée de Grenoble) 2014, no. 81. The latter features a darker material that is best described as ‘burnt red chalk’ (‘sanguine brûlée’).¹⁴¹⁴Ibid., p. 172. and resembles the traces of a reddish medium found on the recto and verso of the present sheet. The Grenoble drawing also bears an autograph inscription on the verso in brown ink, identifying the sitter as ‘jouvrouw Hinloopen’. It has not previously been noted that it can be connected with a painting by the artist of 1648, Portrait of a Woman in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (inv. no. 57.30.2).

Another, similarly annotated study is in the Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Study of a Woman’s Left Forearm (inv. no. 1973.34). Classified there as by Jacob Backer (1608-1651), it, too, is by Jonson van Ceulen, as suggested by Robert-Jan te Rijdt,¹⁵¹⁵Oral communication, January 2019), who recognized its autograph inscription (‘Jefrow Agnes van Brakel / no rings nor Braeslet(s?)’). Its motif is strikingly close to the largest of the present drawing’s verso studies, also in details such as the C-shaped space between the fingers and in the shading along the lower edge of the hand. Yet the contours are somewhat more fluently drawn on the verso of the present sheet. Although minor stylistic differences could be explained by different dates (there are no drawings associated with the last years of the artist’s career), a degree of caution is also prompted by the absence so far of a directly linked painted portrait.

If the present studies were not drawn by Jonson van Ceulen (I), alternative candidates include his son Cornelis Janson van Ceulen II (1634-1715) and his contemporary Pieter Nason (1612-c. 1688/90), whose portraits, such as Portrait of Jacoba van Liere (1652-1693) of 1671 in the Stichting Kasteel Duivenvoorde, Voorschoten (inv. no. DVS00019), feature similar gestures.¹⁶¹⁶S. Craft-Giepmans et al., Adellijke familieportretten op Duivenvoorde, Zwolle 2015, no. 1.

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, 'possibly Cornelis (I) Jonson van Ceulen, _, 1640 - 1660', in J. Turner (ed.), _Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200153334