(Antwerp 1599 – 1641 Blackfriars/London) attributed to,
Study of the head of a bearded man in a fur cloak (study of the head of a shepherd), oil on canvas, 42 x 36 cm, framed

Prof Horst Vey believes the present painting is linked with the “studies of rough heads, which Van Dyck often painted in his second Antwerp period as well”. He refers to the literature: Nora De Poorter “Van Dyck. A Complete Catalogue of the Paintings”, passim. Prof Justus Müller-Hofstede and Didier Bodart agree in considering the painting as an authentic work by Anthony van Dyck.

Certificate: Prof Müller-Hofstede, 31 January 1985: the painting “is in my view a work by Antony van Dyck. The head type of the present study turns up in the work of Antony van Dyck for the first time circa 1627–1628 in ‘The Mocking of Christ’ in the figure of one of the two henchmen (see Dr Gustav Glück, Klassiker der Kunst Van Dyck, Stuttgart-Berlin 1931, ill. p. 215). Here we find the same head with unkempt hair, a sloping forehead, a prominent nose and projecting beard. There is a precedent for this type in the oeuvre of Van Dyck as early as in the facial features of the second beggar in “St. Martin sharing his cloak with a beggar” dated circa 1620 (Saventhem/parish church; G. Glück, op. cit., ill. p. 24). The painting in front of me is the only surviving study of a head from the late, post-Italian period of Antony van Dyck.(...) The execution is evident above all in the temperamental, irregular brushwork and the spontaneous, uneven application of colour, which alternates between a rich impasto use of pigment and a dry, sparse application. In all probability the head in front of me was executed as a study of one of the figures of a shepherd in Van Dyck’s ‘Adoration of the Shepherds’, which was painted by the master as an altar painting for the church of Onze-Lieve-Vrouwe in Dendermonde circa 1631–1632.”

Certificate: Didier Bodart, 22 February 1986 (in French). Didier Bodart has studied the painting in the original. He considers it a “sensitive work by the genius. This vibrating, very swiftly executed study of a man in profile has great simplicity of colour, with strong highlights on the neck, forehead and nose.” Bodart has dated the study to the period when the artist was working in the studio of Rubens. Bodart cites, as comparative works, for instance, the four heads in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich as well as works in the Louvre and in the Hermitage in St. Petersburg. It is probable that these were studies after life, as was the case with the present painting.

Provenance: Spanish private collection