Sir Anthony van Dyck

Graf Attems, Graz, 1931;
Anonymous sale, Vienna, Dorotheum, 4-5 November 1992, lot 77 (as Attributed to Van Dyck);
G. Wagner, Veste Wachsenburg, Holzhausen.

G. Glück, Van Dyck.  Des Meisters Gemälde (Klassiker der Kunst), 2nd ed., New York 1931, p. 522, n.36;
E. Larsen, 'Das erste Porträt des Grafen von Arundel und andrere Vandyckiana II', in Jaarboek Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten Antwerpen, 1993, p. 194;
N. de Poorter, in S.J. Barnes, N. de Poorter, O. Millar, H. Vey, Van Dyck.  A complete Catalogue of the Paintings, New Haven & London 2004, p. 142, no. II.A.8, reproduced, as "judging from the reproduction - cannot be autograph".

The following condition report has been provided by Sarah Walden, an external expert and not an employee of Sotheby's. This painting is on a fine herringbone canvas and has a recent lining and stretcher. There is clear scalloping from the original tacking down each side. There is one clear vertical retouching down the centre, and various other minor verticals. These apparently stem from a previously documented support showing that the canvas had been laid down on panel for some time. From a dim old photograph the central split seems to have been almost open as far as the beard, and there are retouchings in the nose and forehead as well as a wider older retouching in the beard. one or two other retouched verticals including two other shorter verticals from panel cracks running down into the sky from the upper centre right edge and another down the left sky. The recent lining has almost inevitably been pretty strong. The most vivid brushwork is concentrated in the centre, naturally in the figure, with outer areas thinner, more worn and perhaps only initially sketchy. Signs of wear especially in the background and outer edges would be characteristic of use in the studio, probably unstretched. There are fairly extensive careful little strengthening retouchings in these places including throughout the leaves of the book, in the clouds to the left and the outer sky on both sides, and down the outer edges. Within the figure there are minute touches in the flesh painting of the shoulders, the dark forehead and various other places, often touching out minute dark crevices in the herringbone weave, however essentially the fine flow of the brushwork in the figure retains its integrity despite presumably the usual hazards of studio life. This report was not done under laboratory conditions.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

This is a study painted from life of a bearded man, his torso largely uncovered, lit from the left so much of his chest is in shadow, holding his hands up.  The open book in front of him peremptorily marked out in muted grey paint is a later addition.  The red glow on his chest and on the front of his shoulder, in areas otherwise in shadow, suggest that he is warming his hands on a brazier, and this would explain their raised position with fingers slightly beset to catch the heat.

All scholars who have seen this painting in the original following its consignment to Sotheby's are agreed that it is an autograph work by Van Dyck.  The brushwork, especially in the modelling of the shoulder and neck, but also the hair and the lightly sketched-in indications of the fingers and the thumb of the far hand are highly characteristic of Van Dyck, as is the highlight on the far shoulder, done with two short, swift brushstrokes.

When he was in Rubens' workshop in circa 1616, Van Dyck often used the same model for a variety of sketches, some of which he used subsequently in completed paintings.  The five studies of a man with burly features done in oil on paper in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich are a good example of this.¹  Van Dyck used the same model with an aquiline nose and deep-set eyes that we see here in several other sketches.  In one such canvas he appears twice: the Two Studies of a Bearded Man sold in New York, Sotheby's, 28 January 2010 (see fig. 1), which Van Dyck subsequently used for, inter alia, the man threatening Christ in the Christ Crowned with Thorns in Madrid, Prado, and for an observer in his Suffer the Little Children to Come Unto Me in Ottawa, National Gallery of Canada.²  He also occurs twice in a sketch on paper of Two Studies of a Man in Lyon, Musée des Beaux-Arts, the left hand head used for figures in no less than four paintings, and the right hand head for merely one.³   He recurs again in a more finished work on panel (but probably also painted from life) of uncertain subject, a Man with a Bow and a Sheaf, in Bayonne, Musée Bonnat.⁴

Van Dyck used the present study for the armoured figure at the extreme left of what is likely to be the earliest of his three versions of The Betrayal of Christ, in the possession of Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, but located at Corsham Court, where it formed part of the Methuen collection (see fig. 2).⁵  In the Corsham Court painting, the figure is one of several pushing forward, bent on Christ's capture, and his right arm and wrist rest on the naked shoulders of the elderly man below and in front of him (the left arm and hand cannot be seen).  In context, the raised palm and fingers seen in the sketch make no obvious sense in the finished work, and gives the curious impression that the figure was attempting not to touch the figure below him with his hands.  Although they both contain a soldier in armour at the left of the composition, Van Dyck did not use this figure in his two other versions of this subject, in Minneapolis and Madrid.⁶  Although they were probably never considered to be other than works by Van Dyck, all three were painted when Van Dyck was in Rubens' workshop.

Van Dyck made a number of drawings as well as oil sketches from life in preparation for the complex composition of the ambitious Corsham Court picture.  One such is a sketch on canvas (whereabouts unknown) for the man holding up the brazier of burning coals in all three versions of The Betrayal.  The sketch on paper (also whereabouts unknown) for the head of Christ is closest to the Corsham Court version.  It is worth noting that these and the present sketch were all marouflaged on panel, perhaps some years later in order to make them saleable.

The first notice of it was when it was drawn to the attention of Gustav Glück by Wilhelm Suida in 1931 when it in the collection of the Counts of Attems in Graz.⁷  Thereafter there is no published trace of it until it appeared at auction at the Dorotheum in Vienna in 1992, consigned from a Lower Austrian private collection, catalogued as Attributed to Anthony Van Dyck, as depicting Saint Jerome, and accompanied by certificates written by Robert Eigenberger in December 1950 and Ludwig Baldass in January 1951, both as by Van Dyck.⁸  At that time it was marouflaged to an oak panel that had split vertically, causing the canvas to do the same, though not for the entire height of the picture.  More significantly, and as noted in the sale catalogue, a strip 12 cm wide had been added to the right, showing more of the book, and placing the figure's head in the centre of the composition.

Nora de Poorter based her judgement that the work could not be autograph on the black and white photograph of the work in its condition at the time of the sale, although she was aware from Larsen's publication that it had been removed from the backing panel and the added strip to the right removed.⁹  Cusping along the left and right edges show that it is now close to its original dimensions, although the scalloping effect may have been caused by a strainer, and it is possible that it had never been stretched prior to marouflaging.¹⁰  The herringbone "Venetian" weave canvas is unusual in the Netherlands, and some works done in Rubens' workshop are on canvases of similar weave.¹¹     

1.  See N. de Poorter, under Literature, pp. 91-2, nos I.94-8, all reproduced.
2.  Idem, p. 89, no. I.90, reproduced (Two Studies of a Bearded Man); pp. 39-40, no. I.23, reproduced (Christ Crowned with Thorns); pp. 30-1, no. I.14, reproduced (Suffer Little Children to Come Unto Me).  See also Sotheby's New York Important Old Master Paintings catalogue, 28 Janury 2010, pp. 90-3, lot 176.
3.  N. de Poorter, op. cit., pp. 89-90. no. I.91, reproduced.
4.  Idem, pp. 88-9, no. I.89, reproduced.
5.  Idem, pp. 33-4, no. I.17, reproduced.  Scholars are not agreed on the chronology of the three versions, but Nora de Poorter's ordering, in which the Corsham Court picture comes first, is lent support by the present sketch.
6. Idem, pp. 35-7, nos. I.20, I.21, both reproduced.
7. See under Literature.
8. See auction catalogue, Dorotheum, Kunstauktion Alte Meister, 4-5 November 1992, lot 77, reproduced.
9.  See under Literature
10.  See Sarah Walden's detailed condition report, available on request and online.
11. Kind communication of Arnout Balis.