Cornelis Saftleven Gorinchem 1607 - 1681 Rotterdam

J. Werneck (L.2561);
William Pitcairn Knowles (L.2643);
Hamel Collection (according to Goldschmidt sale catalogue);
Rudolf Philip Goldschmidt (L.2926);
His sale, Frankfurt, Prestel, 4-5 October 1917, lot 516 (one of two in the lot);
Dr. Cornelis Hofstede de Groot (L.561);
Anonymous sale Amsterdam, Sotheby's, 15 November 1995, lot 110

Cornelis Saftleven's earliest surviving dated drawings are an Italianate landscape of 1625, in the Rijksprentenkabinet, Amsterdam, and two studies of young men's heads from the following year, one also in Amsterdam, the other in Berlin (see W. Schulz, Cornelis Saftleven 1607-1681, Berlin/New York 1978, cat. nos. 393, 208 and 209).  At about the same time, the artist also produced a group of very interesting diablerie drawings, which are somewhat similar in spirit to this rather histrionic figure study.  The dynamic draughtsmanship seen here and the use of dark, greasy chalk, are typical of Saftleven's figure drawings of the early 1630s, after which his works of this type became rather more down to earth, and quintessentially Dutch, in both subject matter and technique.  Two similarly executed early figure studies, both dated 1633 and depicting A Reclining Youth  and A Kneeling Monk, were sold, Amsterdam, Sotheby's, 16 November 1993, lot 54, and New York, Sotheby's, 13 January 1989, lot 151, respectively.