Netherlandish School, circa 1480-1500

Figure drawings and portrait studies in the refined and unforgiving medium of silverpoint were a central element in the artistic practice of the Netherlandish artist’s studio during the later 15^th and early 16^th centuries. But whereas similar works made at the same time in Italy survive in some numbers, only very few Northern European silverpoint drawings are known. This sophisticated and well preserved portrait study of a man in a fur hat, most probably executed shortly before 1500, is therefore a rare example of a type and quality of drawing that is almost unknown outside the context of major museum collections.

Given the nature of workshop practice, firm attributions to the leading masters themselves are rare: for example, there is only one drawing that is generally accepted as being from the hand of Jan van Eyck (c. 1395-1441), and hardly more by Rogier van der Weyden (1399-1464) or Hugo van der Goes (c. 1440-1482), to whom the present drawing was formerly attributed. All the same, as was so beautifully elucidated in the two exhibitions held in Antwerp in 2002¹, and Washington and London in 2015², the stylistic traditions that can be associated with the workshops of these leading masters can still be identified, and their development and evolution traced. 

As Fritz Koreny noted at the time of the 2011 sale, this outstanding drawing of a man in a fur hat fits most closely into the Van Eyckian tradition, as it developed towards the end of the 15^th century. The finely modulated hatching, sophisticated definition of the cheek using light and shade rather than line, brilliantly executed differentiation between the textures of the hair and the hat, with its longer, more looping strokes, and somewhat cursory indication of costume, all recall drawings such as the Portrait of a Man with a Falcon (c. 1450), the greatest surviving drawing by Petrus Christus (1410/20-1475).³ However, the more robust facial type and preference for cross-hatching, rather than parallel shading, mark the present drawing out as the work of a different, probably somewhat later, hand. In the 2011 sale catalogue, a dating of circa 1500 was proposed, but various scholars have since suggested that the drawing may in fact have been executed a little earlier than this, around 1480.

No related painting has so far been identified, but even in cases when such a connection can be established, such as for the British Museum’s Saint Mary Magdalene from the circle of Rogier van der Weyden, it is often unclear whether the drawing in question was made as a study from life, in preparation for the painting, or as a ricordo.⁴ 

1. F. Koreny, Early Netherlandish Drawings from Jan van Eyck to Hieronymus Bosch, exh. cat., Antwerp, Rubenshuis, 2002

2. S. Sell and H. Chapman (eds.), Drawing in Silver and Gold, Leonardo to Jasper Johns, exh. cat., Washington, DC, National Gallery of Art, and London, British Museum, 2015

3. Frankfurt, Städelsches Kunstinstitut, inv. 725

4. London, British Museum, inv. Oo,9.2