Museum of Art
Artist: van der Stradanus (Dutch, 1523-1605)
Medium: brush and brown ink and brown wash over black chalk on paper
Dimensions: 16 1/8 in. x 10 15/16 in. (40.9 cm. x 27.8 cm.)
Credit Line: Bequest of the Honorable James Bowdoin III
Accession Number: 1811.129
- sun (similar to Briquet 13953-Pisa 1576)
Type: watermark
Location:
Materials:
- James Bowdoin III( Collector, Boston) - 1811.
- Bowdoin College Museum of Art( Museum, Brunswick, Maine) 1811- . Bequest
- Old Master Drawings at Bowdoin College
- Bowdoin College Museum of Art. ( 5/17/1985 - 7/7/1985)
- Clark Art Institute. ( 9/14/1985 - 10/27/1985)
- University of Kansas. ( 1/19/1986 - 3/2/1986)
- Art Gallery of Ontario. ( 5/17/1986 - 6/29/1986)
- Northern Travelers to Sixteenth-Century Italy
- Drawing on Basics
- Bowdoin College Museum of Art. ( 10/14/1993 - 12/19/1993)
- Prints/Drawings & Drawings/Prints, 1500-1800
- Bowdoin College Museum of Art. ( 8/4/2009 - 9/20/2009)
Type: catalogue Author: Henry Johnson Document Title: Catalogue of the Bowdoin College Art Collections Publ. Place: Brunswick, Maine Reference: no. 108 Remarks: (as Unknown) Publisher: Bowdoin College Section Title: Pt. I, The Bowdoin Drawings Date: 1885 Type: catalogue Author: H. Johnson Document Title: Catalogue of the Bowdoin College Art Collections Publ. Place: Brunswick, Maine Reference: no. 108 Remarks: (as Unknown) Publisher: Bowdoin College Section Title: Pt. I, The Bowdoin Drawings Date: 1885 Type: catalogue Author: Bowdoin College Museum of Art Document Title: Bowdoin Museum of Fine Arts, Walker Art Building Publ. Place: Brunswick, Maine Reference: no. 108 Remarks: (as Unknown) Publisher: Bowdoin College Section Title: Descriptive Catalogue of the . . . Date: 1930 Type: exhibition catalogue Author: David P. Becker Document Title: Old Master Drawings at Bowdoin College Publ. Place: Brunswick, Maine Location: p. 12-13 Reference: no. 5 Publisher: Bowdoin College Date: 1985
Stradanus was admitted to the Guild of St. Luke in Antwerp in 1545 and left for Italy two years later. He stayed first in Venice, then in Florence. During 1550, he worked in Rome with Daniele da Volterra and Francesco Salviati. Returning to Florence in 1551, Stradanus began a lengthy period of study and collaboration with Giorgio Vasari and then worked independently as a painter and designer, primarily of tapestries and prints. Although he took journeys to Naples and Flanders, he remained in Florence for the rest of his life.
Previously listed as anonymous Italian, this large drawing was first recognized by Oberhuber as a work of Stradanus. It is a preliminary study for a more finished drawing of only slightly larger dimensions in the Uffizi, Florence.1 The compositions of the two drawings are virtually identical, the only significant change being an adjustment of the top angle of Christ's lectern to render a more accurate perspective in the Uffizi drawing. The architectural setting has been slightly changed, particularly in the background colonnade. The higher degree of finish in that drawing has solidified the space and figures. The Bowdoin sheet apparently was once a bit larger at both sides and top, for additional details are revealed at the edges of the Uffizi sheet. Thiem has ventured, from the elaborate technique and similarity to known painting designs, that the latter drawing is a study for a lost painting.2
The Bowdoin and Uffizi sheets are closely related to at least two others. In a private collection in Fort Worth, there is a sheet of the Adoration of the Shepherds of virtually identical dimensions and technique to the Bowdoin sketch.3 And there is another highly finished drawing of the Visitation of the same format in the Uffizi.4 Perhaps all these drawings were part of a projected larger series on the Life of the Virgin. Another series of drawings on the Life of the Virgin in smaller format is at Windsor Castle5 (a series later engraved by Adriaen Collaert in Antwerp6), which includes Christ among the Doctors. There is a very small sketch related to the Windsor drawing in the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, New York.7
1. Inv. no. 5154S (Gernsheim Corpus no. 23920).
2. Thiem 1958, p. 102.
3. Reproduced in E. Pillsbury and J. Caldwell, Sixteenth-Century Italian Drawings — Form and Function (exh. cat.) (New Haven: Yale University Art Gallery, 1974), cat. no. 22.
4. Repr. Thiem 1958, p. 98, fig. 9.
5. J. van Puyvelde, The Flemish Drawings in the Collection of His Majesty the King at Windsor Castle (London, 1942), p. 23, no. 147, repr.
6. Hollstein Dutch and Flemish, vol. 4, p. 202.
7. Inv. no. 1901-39-116v.
Commentary credited to David P. Becker (or not otherwise captioned) appeared in his catalogue Old Master Drawings at Bowdoin College (Brunswick: Bowdoin College Museum of Art, 1985).