(Antwerp 1599 - 1641 London)
A portrait study of a man, standing, black and white chalk on bluish green paper, 25,4 x 17,5 cm, framing lines in pen and brown ink on the upper and left margins, old laid down on another laid paper, mounted, unframed, (Sch)

Provenance:
Collection Julius Samuel Held (1905-2002), Lugt 4805;
Auction sale Sotheby's London, 7th July 2011, Lot 11 (as Anthonis van Dyck);
Auction sale Sotheby's Hong Kong, 4th April 2017, Lot 3046 (attributed to Anthonis van Dyck);
Auction sale Sothey's London, 20. September 2019, Lot 570 (attributed to Anthonis van Dyck)

Compare:
Susan J. Barnes, Nora De Poorter, Oliver Millar und Horst Vey, Van Dyck. A Complete Catalogue of the Paintings, New Haven and London, 2004, Cat. II 83 and II. 80; Hors Vey, Die Zeichnungen Anton van Dycks, Brussels 1962, Cat. No. 130, 185, 202, 206, 277; Christopher Brown, Van Dyck Drawings, Pierpont Morgan Library, New York 1991, Cat. No. 50, 52, 61, 66, 77.

In the present study van Dyck concentrated exclusively on the sitter’s hands, whereas the face is only summarily indicated. Even though the present drawing cannot be related as a preliminary drawing for a painting by the artist, a comparable pose can be detected in two portraits in the Collection of the Ca‘ d’Oro in Venice (comp. Susan J. Barnes, Nora De Poorter, Oliver Millar und Horst Vey, Van Dyck. A Complete Catalogue of the Paintings, New Haven and London, 2004, Cat. II 83 and II. 80). Both paintings date from van Dyck’s Genoese period of around 1627-28; the depiction of the hands and the shades, which are executed in a sketchy manner, are typical for the artist’s drawings of the following period during his second sojourn in Antwerp between 1628 and 1632. A technically related and comparable drawing from that period is a study for a “Lamentation of Christ” which is kept in the British Museum London (Inv. Nr. 1875,0313.45). A comparable portrait drawing of that time is the significant study for the “Portrait of Anna van Thielen and her daughter Anna Maria Rombouts (c. 1631-1632) in the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York (Inv. Nr. I, 244).
The present drawing may have also been created in the context of Van Dyck’s influential portrait series „Iconographie“ (c. 1627-1635). The series comprises a series of etchings after drawings by the artist, which depict the most important artistic and cultural personalities of van Dyck’s time. Even though the preliminary studies for the etchings other than the present drawing were executed on white rather than on blue paper, great stylistic similarities can be observed especially with the portrait Karel von Mallery (c. 1632-1635) in Chatsworth (Inv. Nr. 1001). Another portrait drawing by van Dyck, where upon the artist concentrated exclusively on the hands and the drapery of the sitter, is a study on blue paper in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris (Inv. 34604). That drawing was executed in preparation for the painting “Queen Henrietta Maria and Her Dwarf” (1633) in the National Gallery of Art in Washington- Another comparable, albeit somewhat sketchier drawing is the study for the portrait of Justus van Meerstraeten (1634-35) in Christ Church, Oxford (Inv. Nr. JBS 1385).

We are grateful to Christopher Brown for the confirmation of the attribution on the basis of a high-resolution digital photograph and for the scientific support.