Netherlandish School circa 1500

Laid down; the corners cut. Lightly foxed overall. Otherwise very good condition.
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The stylistic origins of this highly sensitive and refined silverpoint study lie in the work of Rogier van der Weyden, whose wide-ranging influence continued to be felt for several generations, after his death in 1464.  Rogier's influence was not so much as a draughtsman - indeed no universally accepted drawing by the artist is known - but more in terms of the techniques and figure types that characterise the numerous surviving drawn copies of his works, produced by various artists during the rest of the fifteenth century and the early part of the sixteenth.¹

This drawing does not, however, appear to be a copy after a figure from a known work by Rogier, and is more likely to be drawn from the life, recording with great tenderness the features of a real child.  Of the artists of the subsequent generations, perhaps the one whose paintings appear closest in sensibility to what we see here is Ambrosius Benson,² but no drawings by the artist have been identified, so the link remains tenuous.  This must, however, be by an artist of comparable ability, probably also working in Bruges in the years around, or shortly after 1500.

1. See F. Koreny, Early Netherlandish Drawings, from Jan van Eyck to Hieronymus Bosch, exh. cat., Antwerp, Rubenshuis, 2002, pp. 67-122

2. See M. Friedländer, Early Netherlandish Painting, vol. XI, Leyden/Brussels 1974, pp. 59-61, 93-101, cats. 232-297, pls. 156-84