Gillis van Tilborgh

Sale, London, Sotheby's, 21 March 1977, in lot 104 (11 sheets);
with Richard Day, London

Hinge mounted to a double sided decorative mount. There is some slight surface dirt to the extremities, however the work remains in otherwise very good condition throughout, with the images, both recto and verso, remaining strong. Sold unframed.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

This intriguing, double-sided sheet is one of a group of eleven similar works of the same size, some executed in silverpoint, some in leadpoint, which were together until their sale in 1977, and may well originally have been bound together as a little booklet.  Some of the sheets bear slightly later inscriptions attributing the works to Gillis van Tilborgh, a Flemish painter who was active in Brussels from circa 1625 until the later 1670s, in which case these would be some of the last examples of a type of drawing in metalpoint which had enjoyed immense popularity with many of the greatest draughtsmen of earlier times, including Leonardo, Raphael and Dürer, and has also been widely – and brilliantly – practised by Hendrick Goltzius and his Haarlem contemporaries.¹  As Ernst van de Wetering first described, some years ago, it seems to have been a fairly common practice in 17^th-century Holland for artists to carry with them small booklets of prepared paper or vellum tablets of this type, on which they could make rapid sketches in metalpoint or hard chalk, obliterating these studies when they were no longer needed by re-grounding the sheet for reuse.²  Some of the studies on these sheets by Van Tilborgh are copied from earlier prototypes, others seem to be original ideas, but in both cases, the artist is using the ‘tafelette’ for the purposes of study and learning.  Another sheet from the group was formerly in the collection of Charles Ryskamp.³  See also the fine metalpoint drawing by Andries Both, lot 261 above.

^1.  A. van Camp, ‘Metalpoint Drawings in the Low Countries in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,’ in S. Sell & H. Chapman, Drawing in Silver and Gold, Leonardo to Jasper Johns, exh. cat., Washington, National Gallery of Art, and London, British Museum, 2015, pp. 159-60

^2.  E. van de Wetering, ‘Verdwenen tekeningen en het gebruik van afwisbare tekenplankjes en ‘tafeletten’,’ Oud Holland, vol. CV, 1991, pp. 210-27

^3.  Sold, New York, Sotheby’s, 25 January 2011, lot 212; see W.W. Griswold et al., The World Observed. Five Centuries of Drawings from the Collection of Charles Ryskamp, exh. cat., New York, The Morgan Library, no. 21