ATTRIBUTED TO SIR ANTHONY VAN DYCK | DOUBLE-SIDED SHEET OF FIGURE STUDIES WITH THE MADONNA AND CHILD

Benjamin Wolff (1790-1866), Copenhagen (L.420), sale of his collection, Copenhagen, Bruun Rasmussen, 30 May 2018, lot 404 (as Flemish School, 17th Century)

This double-sided sheet of studies, which range from the extremely rapidly sketched figure, possibly of an infant St. John, towards the lower left, to the much more highly worked head study top right, is strongly reminiscent of various sheets in Van Dyck's famous Italian Sketchbook, formerly at Chatsworth and now in the British Museum. In the Italian Sketchbook, first reproduced in its entirety only in 2002, in Michael Jaffé's posthumously published catalogue of the Northern drawings from the Devonshire Collection¹, we find very similar differences in degree of finish even on the same sheet (e.g. ff 20/21²), and more importantly, extremely similar handling: for example, the profile of the figure to the right of f.14 verso is extremely similar to that of the sketchy figure to the left of the present sheet.³ It seems very possible that the sheet records figures from one or more Italian paintings, presumably representing an Adoration, and there are also similarities with other drawings by Van Dyck, not from the sketchbook, which are clearly inspired by compositions by Titian and others, such as the Holy Family with Saint Elizabeth, still at Chatsworth.⁴  

1.  M Jaffé, The Devonshire Collection of Northern European Drawings, 5 vols., Turin/London/Venice 2002, vol. I, pp. 70-127, cat nos. 986-1132 

2. Ibid., cat. nos. 1024-5

3.  Ibid., cat. no. 1013