Abraham Bloemaert

C.W. Sherborn;

by inheritance to D.R. Sherborn, Esq., 

by whom sold, London, Sotheby’s, 28 March 1968, lot 29 (£20, to P. Claas; as bearing the mark of C.W. Sherborn, L.648, and another unidentified mark);

with Herman Shickman, New York,

by whom sold, Amsterdam, Sotheby’s, 5 November 2002, lot 20 (purchased by the present owner) 

J.A. Bolten, Abraham Bloemaert c. 1565-1651, The Drawings, Leiden 2007, vol. I, p. 19, under no. 8, reproduced vol. II, p. 11, fig. 8d

According to Dr. Jaap Bolten, other autograph versions of this composition, more highly finished than this spontaneous preliminary study, are in Rouen, Basel, Brauschweig and Göttingen, and copies are in a French private collection, and in Massalombarda, Italy. 

Bolten dates the work to 1597-99, and points out that the figure of Cain resembles that of the semi-nude man in the left foreground of The Raising of Lazarus, a fine drawing of the same period, in Leipzig.¹ This relatively early period in Bloemaert's long career saw the production of some of his most technically exciting and compositionally original drawings, executed with true late Mannerist flair and imagination.

1. Bolten, op. cit., no. 146