Lot 8: DIRCK BARENDSZ. AMSTERDAM 1534 - 1592

TWO SCENES FROM THE PASSION: THE KISS OF JUDAS, AND THE MOCKING OF CHRIST

measurements note
255 by 201mm; 255 by 204mm

each bears numbering and inscription in black ink on the old mount: 10.^e/Jesus est trahi . par un baiser.; 13.^e/Jesus est maltraité par les soldats.;
both oil on paper

Quantity: 2

NOTE

These studies come from a series originally containing 40 chiaroscuros in oil by Barendsz., depicting scenes from the life of Christ. Twenty-four of the group have been identified, including two in Rouen (Musée des Beaux-Arts et de la Céramique de Rouen, inv. nrs. 975.4.27-8), two in the British Museum (inv. nos. 1985.10.5.3 and 1987.6.20.28), and one in the Rijksprentenkabinet (inv. no. RP-T-1995-8). The group is preparatory for an incomplete series of engravings by Jan Sadeler I, of which only five are known: The Entry into Jerusalem; Christ Driving the Moneychangers from the Temple; Father, Glorify Thy Name; The Anointing at Bethany; and Christ Crowned with Thorns (see The Age of Bruegel: Netherlandish Drawings in the Sixteenth Century, exhibition catalogue, Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art, 1986, pp. 59-61, under cat. no. 9).

It was Mariette who first connected the designs with Sadeler's engravings, when he examined the entire group of drawings in Paris in 1759. Mariette also mentioned a numbering system corresponding to that seen on the old mounts of the drawings in the present lot; a sheet from the series in Lille, and the four exhibited by Colnaghi's in 1985 were also mounted in the same manner.

The dating of these designs has been disputed: comparisons have been made with Barendsz.'s drawings both of the mid to late 1560s and of the 1580s, and as the artist's work does not show a clear chronological development, it is difficult to reach any definite conclusion. In any case, the drawings reveal the artist's close understanding of his Venetian contemporaries, and in particular the free oil sketches of Palma Giovane and Tintoretto.