Old Master & British Works on Paper

Old Master & British Works on Paper

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 135. Female nude, seen from behind.

Jacob van Loo

Female nude, seen from behind

Lot Closed

July 8, 12:49 PM GMT

Estimate

7,000 - 9,000 GBP

Lot Details

Description

Jacob van Loo

Sluis 1614 - 1670 Paris

Female nude, seen from behind


Red chalk over traces of black chalk

173 by 162 mm

Sir Peter Lely (1618-1680), London (L.2092);
Prince Wladimir Nikolaevitch Argoutinsky-Dolgoroukoff (1874-1941), St. Petersburg and Paris (L.2602d)
As Judith Noorman described in the publication accompanying the illuminating exhibition on the subject of drawing from nude models in the Dutch Golden Age, held at the Rembrandthuis in Amsterdam in 2016, the practice of drawing nude female figures from live models was almost unheard of in the Netherlands before the middle of the 17th century.1  Indeed, the group of artists around Rembrandt, including Jacob van Loo, who started to make drawings of this type on a regular basis from the 1640s on were great innovators, who, together with their models, came in for much criticism on moral grounds.  Yet already by 1643-4, Crispijn de Passe published a model book, 't Light der Teken en Schilderkonst, that included many prints of what appear to be naked female models, reflecting this new fashion. 

Jacob van Loo was one of the artists in the Amsterdam group around Rembrandt who took a particular interest in drawing the female nude. A black and white chalk study, in the Leiden University printroom, is the preparatory drawing for the central figure in the artist's painting of Danaë, in a Dutch private collection, and gives a clear indication of the distinctive qualities of Van Loo's drawing style:  bold, linear contours, delicate shading, somewhat schematic features, and a good grasp of modelling and foreshortening.2  Although drawings in red chalk by Van Loo seem to be much rarer than those in black and white chalk, the handling seen here seems similar enough to drawings such as the connected study in Leiden to support the attribution.

It is also worth noting that within a very few decades of its making, the drawing came into the collection of the great connoisseur, Sir Peter Lely.  

1.  J. Noorman & D. De Witt (ed.), Rembrandt's Naked Truth. Drawing nude models in the Golden Age, Amsterdam 2016, pp. 11-14

2.  Ibid., pp. 132-3, cat. 32 and fig. 89