Sebastiaen Vrancx

L. Wood Ruby, 'Sebastiaen Vrancx as Illustrator of Virgil's Aeneid,' Master Drawings, vol. XXVIII, no. 1 (1990), p. 70

Window mounted on a modern mount. There is some very minor surface dirt to areas of the sheet. The work remains in otherwise very fine condition throughout, with the pen and ink medium strong. Sold in a modern wooden frame.
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The present work and the following lot are both part of a series of at least sixty-five drawings illustrating Virgil's epic, which were first attributed to Vrancx by Ruth Muthmann and Andrew Robison in 1983, and subsequently fully discussed by Louisa Wood Ruby.¹ In most of the surviving drawings from this series, the image occupies the upper half of the sheet, while below it is written the text that it illustrates. Here, these texts have been cut off, but otherwise the format and handling are identical with Vrancx's other drawings for Virgil.  Wood Ruby dates these drawings circa 1615, and points out not only that they constitute the most extensive series of Aeneid illustrations since Sebastian Brandt's of 1502, but also that the rhymed Dutch paraphrasing of Virgil's text that appears below the images does not correspond with any published translation of the original, and may indeed represent Vrancx's own attempt at a new translation. 

1. Wood Ruby, Op. cit.,  pp. 54-73