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-00-454

The present drawing was once pasted on fol. 30 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-00-452(V), 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 present sheet might have served as a folder numbered ’11’, 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 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. the present sheet and inv. no. RP-T-00-453, both of which were given to Cornelis Jonson van Ceulen I.

The present drawing of a female hand elegantly lifting a piece of drapery is done in a particularly finished manner that could be an artist’s distinctive way of drawing. The dense hatching used to let the female arm and puff sleeve stand out against a dark background resembles that in inv. no. RP-T-00-422, and the subtly applied highlights are similar to those found in inv. no. RP-T-00-425, both also given to Jonson van Ceulen I. Though different from the ‘raw’ manner found in the artist’s study of the hand of Burgomaster Geelvinck of circa 1646 (inv. no. RP-T-1950-101), the rendering of the hand is strikingly close to a Study of a Woman’s Left Forearm in the Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum (inv. no. 1973.34), which can also be attributed to Jonson van Ceulen.¹¹¹¹In the museum the drawing is classified as by Jacob Backer (1608-1651), but it bears a similar autograph inscription as the Geelvinck study, as pointed out to the author by Robert-Jan te Rijdt in January 2019. Analogies include not only the shape of the fingers and the way they are modelled by short parallel hatchings, but also their vibrating contours.

If the drawing is not by Jonson van Ceulen himself, it must have been by someone familiar with his personal mannerisms. Because no corresponding painting has been associated with the present sheet, the attribution still lacks final confirmation. The closest related work in Jonson van Ceulen’s oeuvre is the Portrait of Anna Margaretha Neef (1641-1688), dated 1654, in the Neufvillische Familien Stiftung), Frankfurt-am-Main; the softer shape of the sleeve is found, for instance, in his Portrait of Anna Maria Ramp (1637-1710), dated 1660, in a private collection, Germany.

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 (n. 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/200153336