Attributed to Francisco de Herrera the Younger

Estimate

4,000 - 6,000 GBP

bidding is closed

Description

Francisco de Herrera the Younger
Recto: a sheet of studies with the madonna and child, a head of a male saint, two figure sketches and a separate study for the christ child;Verso: study for a coat-of-arms and a sketch of a plan of a building
Pen and brown ink (recto and verso);
bears indistinct inscription in pen and brown ink on the recto and another partly legible on the verso: y......ermosa/que suas vos suspende/y el boco tan grande/quin...... and numbering top left: 44

Provenance

Private Collection, Germany

Condition

The edges of the drawing are torn and have several dents and tiny losses. It was once part of a sketchbook. A repaired tear to the mid of the right margin coming down below the Virgin's draped cloth over the right arm. At the top, a trace of an old fold and one slight diagonal fold. A stain at the bottom to the right and a few stains on the verso towards the top and bottom margins of the sheet. Surface dirt especially at the edges.
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Catalogue Note

This double-sided sheet was once part of a sketchbook. Stylistically it can be associated with the work of Herrera the Younger. It seems to share the same freedom in the use of the pen as a drawing in the Kunsthalle, Hamburg, Studies with Heads and the Figure of Christ.¹ Jonathan Brown, in his article on Herrera's drawings, has pointed out the importance of the artist's work on paper, due to the fact that very little of his painted oeuvre has survived. He also stressed the frequent misattribution of the artist's drawings to his father, Herrera the Elder, who is much better known as a draughtsman. He writes that the similarities of style between father and son are even more apparent in the drawings executed solely in pen and ink, like the Hamburg example. But he noted that the vitality of expressions and the energy of the line in areas like the hair and the beard, which are comparable to the present sheet, are typical of the personality of Herrera the Younger.

1. Inv. no. 38512; J. Brown, 'Drawings by Herrera the Younger and a Follower', Master Drawings, 13, no. 3, 1975, p. 238, no. 5, reproduced pl. 5