Flemish School, 17th century

This arresting work on paper laid down on canvas depicting the head of a man, possibly a shepherd, relates directly to a slightly larger work by a different hand in the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Kassel.¹ Historically, the Kassel picture was attributed to Ludovico Carracci and successively ascribed to an artist working in the Carracci circle. The current attribution to a follower of Van Dyck was made by Dr Eric Schleier in his review of the catalogue of the Italian, French and Spanish paintings in Kassel by Jürgen M. Lehmann in 1980, published in The Burlington Magazine in 1985.² This was later accepted by Bernhard Schnackenburg in his 1996 catalogue.³

^By comparison, this work differs in its warmer colouring, close-up format and looser brushwork. It is hard to determine which version came first, however the sketchier handling of this work suggests it might be a derivation of the more highly finished version in Kassel. 

¹ Inv. no. GK 566; oil on paper laid down on canvas; 51.5 x 40 cm.; https://altemeister.museum-kassel.de/32691

² E. Schleier, Review of J.M. Lehmann's 'Italienische, französische und spanische Gemälde des 16. bis 18. Jahrhunderts. Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Kassel; Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister Schloss Wilhelmshöhe', in The Burlington Magazine, CXXVII, no. 990, September 1985, pp. 626–29.

³ B. Schnackenburg, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister Kassel: Gesamtkatalog

, Mainz 1996, vol. I, p. 112, vol. II, pl. 60, reproduced.