Flemish School, 17th Century

Lord Torpichen (?) according to inscription on the former mount;
purchased at a sale at the Pantechnicon Saleroom, London, circa 1955

M. Jaffé, 'Figure drawings attributed to Rubens, Jordaens and Cossiers in the Hamburg Kunsthalle,' Jahrbuch der Hamburger Kunstsammlungen, vol. 16, 1971, reproduced fig. 15 (as Jan Cossiers)

Various small holes, backed with tabs of paper. Some thin areas. Paper surface somewhat dirty, but chalk still good and strong.
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Jaffé's attribution of this large and accomplished head study to Cossiers is understandable, as there certainly are similarities with the series of exceptional portrait drawings that Cossiers made, mostly of members of his family, around 1658, examples of which are at the Getty, the British Museum, and the Pierpont Morgan Library, and in the Lugt and van Regteren Altena collections.¹ Those drawings are, however, all more fundamentally Rubensian in technique, and the fine, cursive outlines and bold hatching seen here, and also the distinctive use of rather soft red chalk, broadly applied over a light black chalk sketch, signify that this is the work of another hand, not so very far from the world of Rubens, but as yet unidentified.  The drawing was also formerly attributed to John Runciman.

1.  For the fullest recent account, see N. Turner, The J. Paul Getty Museum, European Drawings 4, Los Angeles 2001, no. 43