Lot 127: Jacques de Gheyn II (Antwerp 1565-1629 The Hague)

Jacques de Gheyn II (Antwerp 1565-1629 The Hague) A bust of Roma; and A bust of a forest god the first with number 'No 89'; the second with number 'No 88' black chalk, pen and brown ink, circular 2½ x 3 1/8 in. (6.3 x 7.7 cm. diam.) (2)

6.3 x 7.7 cm.

I.Q. van Regteren Altena, Jacques de Gheyn: Three Generations, The Hague, 1983, II, nos. 1010-1011, III, pls. 396-7. K.G. Boon, The Netherlandish and German Drawings of the XVth and XVIth Centuries of the Frits Lugt Collection, Paris, 1992, pp. 154, and 157 note 8, under no. 84.

Frits Lugt (according to Pieter de Boer's letter). Paul Brandt (1900-1984), Amsterdam (according to the collection files). with Pieter de Boer, Amsterdam; by whom presented as a gift to I.Q. van Regteren Altena in 1969 (according to a letter in the collection files).

The numbering visible on these two drawings enables them to be traced back to an album, probably assembled in the early 18th Century, which was formerly in the collection of Paul Brandt in Amsterdam. It contained around 90 drawings by various hands, each numbered in this distinctive fashion. 33 were noted by Boon (op. cit.), including thirteen by either Jacques de Gheyn II or III, of which six are now in the Fondation Custodia and two in the Rijksmuseum (K.G. Boon, Netherlandish Drawings of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries in the Rijksmusuem, Amsterdam, Amsterdam, 1978, I, nos. 679 and 50, III, pls. 79 and 3 respectively). The present drawings were placed in the album beside the Portrait of a young woman by Jacques de Gheyn II, which bears the number '90' and is now in the Fondation Custodia (Boon, op. cit., no. 84).