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-00-451(R)

The present drawing was once pasted on fol. 29 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 which 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.

Among the ‘Netscher Album’ group, the present drawing as well as 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, both on their respective rectos and versos. There are some analogies 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), and paintings, including his Portrait of a Man, dated 1656, recently on the Amsterdam art market,¹¹¹¹Sale, Amsterdam (Sotheby’s), 31 January 2013, no. 197. where the hand against the chest is related to the motif on the verso of the present drawing.

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’). Generally, these studies of hands call for further research. Related motifs are found, for instance, in paintings by three other portraitists, including his son, Cornelis Jonson van Ceulen II (1634-1715), as in his Portrait of a Man, Probably Johan van Nellesteyn (1617-1677), dated 1664, which appeared on the Amsterdam art market in 2005;¹²¹²Sale, Amsterdam (Sotheby’s), 10 May 2005, no. 93. in that picture, the sitter’s left hand is holding a glove strikingly close to a motif on the drawing’s verso. Another candidate is Adriaen Hanneman (c. 1604-1671), whose Portrait of Sir Kenelm Digby of 1654 in the collection of the Marquess of Bath at Longleat, Warminster (Wiltshite),¹³¹³Photo RKD. features a similar detail. A third option is Pieter Nason (1612-c. 1688/90), whose male portraits reveal a predilection for hands with long fingers held across each other, like those on the recto. See, for example, his Portrait of a Man in Armour of 1662,¹⁴¹⁴Sale, London (Christie’s), 9 December 2005, no. 162. the Portrait of a Man, on the art market at Lokeren in 2004,¹⁵¹⁵Jan Muller B.V.B.A.; photo RKD. and the Portrait of a Man from 1663.¹⁶¹⁶Sale, Zurich (Koller), 10 November 1971, no. 2945.

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/200153332