Lot 46: JACQUES DE GHEYN THE YOUNGER (1565-1629) FORTUNE.

Signed: J.D. Geyn. in. Pen and brown ink and grey wash. Indented for transfer. The corners rounded. 213 by 156 mm. Provenance: Baron H. von Geymuller (L.1133). Literature: I.Q. van Regteren Altena, Jacques de Gheyn, Three Generations, 3 vols., The Hague 1983, vol. II, cat. 177 (as the lost design for the print (see below); the print illustrated vol. I, p.51, fig.42). The study in reverse for the first in a series of eight prints that collectively illustrate the theme of transience, which were engraved, after de Gheyn's designs, by Zacharias Dolendo in 1596-97 (Holl. 129-136). Although he did not know whether or not this drawing had survived, van Regteren Altena allocated it a number in his catalogue raisonne of de Gheyn's drawings, alongside the other seven sheets from the series, now in Leiden, Hamburg and Amsterdam (see Literature). The iconographical scheme for this unusual series of prints appears to have been devised by the theologian Hugo Grotius, who also wrote the two-line explicatory texts that accompany each image; according to the engraved inscriptions, Grotius was only 13 years old when he wrote these mottoes. In their order within the series, the eight prints depict Fortune, Wealth, Pride, Jealousy, War, Poverty, Faith and Peace. Each of these qualities or states leads naturally into the next, and the last, Peace, leads back again to Fortune. Thus the whole series illustrates a grand "cycle of life" that demonstrates at once both the futility and the security of man's worldly existence. This concept was very popular with philosophers and artists alike in late sixteenth and early seventeenth century Holland, and it encapsulates the curious combination of humility and complacency which was so characteristic of the Dutch consciousness at this time. Van Regteren Altena described this series of designs as de Gheyn's "most ambitious scheme in the highly productive year 1596". At this stage of his career, de Gheyn was closely involved with the sophisticated artistic circle, centred on Haarlem, whose other leading lights were Cornelis van Haarlem, Karel van Mander and Hendrik Goltzius; the stylistic and theoretical influence of these powerful figures is clearly apparent both in the increasingly refined mannerism of his compositions and figure types, and in his growing interest in the representation of abstruse subjects, often devised by leading philosophers and theologians. Drawings such as this demonstrate, however, that even at this relatively early stage in his career, de Gheyn could express these typical characteristics of Dutch Mannerism extremely successfully within the framework of his own distinctive and original aesthetic vision.