Michiel Coxie the Elder

Laid down. Lower right and upper left corners missing and lower left corner torn. Various small repaired tears at edges. and minor losses elsewhere. On two sheets of paper, joined and laid down; a revised section under Lot's left arm on a separate piece of paper, cut out and inserted. Paper rather discoloured throughout. Ink a little sunk and faded, especially towards lower corners, but still generally strong and very readable.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Previously unrecorded, this important 16^th-century drawing is clearly by the same hand as another in the Lugt Collection,¹ which is similar in format (though apparently cut down at the sides²), extremely comparable in handling, and related in subject.  The Lugt drawing represents The Meeting of Abraham and Melchizedek and it seems very likely that it and the present drawing were originally part of a larger series of designs illustrating the story of Abraham.

Stylistically, these two sheets reflect a knowledge of the drawing style of Pieter Coecke van Aelst, but the combination of bold, repeated penwork in the figures and cursive, free strokes in, for example, the foliage, is distinctive and highly personal.  The attribution of the Lugt drawing to Coxie was proposed by Wouter Kloek.  Although the handful of fully signed drawings by the artist that are known are rather more tightly executed, there are clear similarities with a series of five drawings of Triumphs, in Budapest, which Teréz Gerszi plausibly attributed to Coxie on the basis both of their style and of the monogram found on the last sheet in the series, The Triumph of Time.³  The attribution to Coxie of the Lugt drawing and the present work is therefore convincing.

Coxie appears to have been a pupil of Barent van Orley, after which he spent several years in Italy, from the late 1520s until the mid 1530s.  In 1532 he worked alongside Vasari in Rome, and in 1534 enrolled as a member of Rome's Accademia di San Luca.  He is only recorded in the Netherlands again in 1539.  During his time in Italy, Coxie would have been exposed to the work of Raphael and his circle, and this had a lasting impact on his style, which would have been reinforced after his arrival in Brussels, where he worked at the court during the 1540s and '50s.  Raphael's famous Vatican tapestry cartoons had been sent to Brussels for weaving in 1516-17, an event that had a profound and lasting impact on Flemish art.  In charge of the tapestry manufacture was Pieter Coecke van Aelst, and through his works and those of his associates and pupils, notably Barent van Orley and Michiel Coxie, a school of Raphaelesque yet distinctly Netherlandish tapestry design was established, in which Coxie played a prominent role.

Were it not for the fact that the central figures in the present drawing are pricked for transfer, the natural assumption would be that it and its partner in Paris were originally part of a series of designs for tapestries.  The pricking suggests, however, the possibility of a different, as yet unidentified purpose, though since the Paris drawing is not pricked, is equally possible that the drawings were, after all, made as tapestry designs, and only afterwards were the figural motifs from the present drawing transferred, actual size, to a different surface.  In any case, no tapestry corresponding to either composition is known, though Barent van Orley did produce a tapestry design with the same subject. 

This drawing is an important addition to the small body of Michiel Coxie's known drawings.

1.  Inv. 5444.  See K.G. Boon, The Netherlandish and German Drawings of the XVth and XVIth Centuries of the Frits Lugt Collection, 3 vols., Paris 1992, vol. 1, pp. 104-3, no. 61, reproduced vol. 3, pl. 36. We are very grateful to Peter Fuhring for bringing this drawing to our attention.
2.  The measurements are 279 by 426 mm.
3.  T. Gerszi, Netherlandish Drawings in the Budapest Museum, Sixteenth-Century Drawings, 2 vols., Amsterdam 1971, nos. 56-60, reproduced.