Lot 60: CORNELIS VAN POELENBURCH

CORNELIS VAN POELENBURCH UTRECHT 1594/95 - 1667 RECTO : STUDY OF A RIVER AND ROCKS; VERSO : STUDY OF A SCULPTURE OF TWO FIGHTING FIGURES Pen and brown ink and wash over traces of black chalk ( recto ); red chalk over stylus ( verso ); signed with initials in red chalk, verso : CP 320 by 197 mm

Private collection, Amsterdam;
with Bob P. Haboldt, Paris/New York (Dessins anciens des Ecoles du Nord, Françaises et Italiennes, 1990-91, no. 25), from whom bought by the present owner

This important sheet combines very typical examples of two of Poelenburch's most characteristic types of studies: Italianate landscape views, delicately drawn in pen and brown ink and wash, and striking, powerfully modelled red chalk figure studies. The latter type of drawing is rather rare, and the combination of the two on the same sheet is particularly interesting. Also rare are signed drawings by the artist.

The red chalk figure study on the verso may well show a sculpture of St. Michael vanquishing the devil. Another drawing by Poelenburch apparently showing the upright figure from the same statuette, but seen from the side, is in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.υ1 Alan Chong suggested, however, that the figure in the Rijksmuseum drawing was derived from Raphael's fresco, The Fire in the Borgo, but the pose does indeed seem very similar to that in the present drawing. Chong dates the Amsterdam drawing, which also has a sketchy landscape on one side and a figure study on the other, to around 1622-24. The present sheet too should be dated to the first half of the 1620s, during Poelenburch's stay in Italy.

1. Inv. 1954: 186. See A. Chong, 'The drawings of Cornelis van Poelenburch', in Master Drawings, 1987, no. 1, pp. 31-2, no. 32, reproduced pl.14 (recto) and fig.14 (verso)