Lot 8: AMBROSIUS BOSSCHAERT, CALLED AMBROISE DUBOIS

ST JOHN THE BAPTIST IN THE DESERT

8 1/2 by 11 7/8 in; 215 by 300 mm

Oil on parchment, laid down on canvas

Sylvie Beguin, 'Quelques nouveaux dessins d'Ambroise Dubois', La Revue de l'Art, no.14, 1971, p. 38 reproduced fig.15 and note 36

Jacques Petithory, Paris

Sylvie Beguin and K.G. Boon independently proposed the attribution to Ambroise Dubois for this drawing. According to Sylvie Beguin it can be closely compared with the decoration Dubois executed between 1609-10 for the Grand Cabinet du Roi, today the Salon of Louis XIII, in the Château de Fontainebleau. She points out that although the landscape has a strong Flemish influence, the style of the figures shows a debt to Primaticcio. She discusses a number of similarities with the figure of the seated man in the decoration of the vault of the Cabinet, the story of Théagène and Chariclée taken from Heliodorus's Aethiopica, for instance the modeling of the body, the use of light, and close rendering of details such as the hands.