Circle of Hieronymus Cock

Bears unidentified collectors mark (L.1499);
sale, London, Sotheby's, 21 October 1976, lot 102 (as Joachim Sandrart);
sale, London, Sotheby's, 9 July 2014, lot 11

The author of this powerful yet elegant drawing, surely a 16^th-century northern European artist working in Rome, clearly knew Hieronymous Cock's important series of 24 etchings of Roman ruins, published in 1551.¹ 

The various antique fragments seen in this composition were all known at this time, but were not to be seen together like this. The 1^st-2^nd century female statue in the foreground is now in the Villa Corsini, Florence, and was drawn twice by Girolamo da Carpi. The base with Egyptian figures, seen here to the right, was unearthed in the Iseum Campense, in Rome, and is now in the Uffizi, Florence; it is recorded in one of the drawings in Cassiano dal Pozzo’s Museo Cartaceo.²  Finally, the sarcophagus depicting the myth of Bellerophon is in the Villa Doria-Pamphili in Rome.

We are grateful to Dr. Jörg Deterling for kindly helping to identify the antiquities depicted.

1.     F.W. Hollstein, Dutch & Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts ca. 1450 – 1700, vol. 4, nos. 22-46

2.  London, British Museum, inv. 2005,0926.113