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Bowdoin College BCMA Logo Museum of Art

  • letters IHS with cross over small fleur-de-lis
    Type: watermark
    Location:
    Materials:
  • "P. de Jode/No. 238"
    Type: inscription
    Location: verso
    Materials: pen and brown ink
  • "P. de Jode"
    Type: inscription
    Location: old mount
    Materials: pen and black ink (over earlier graphite inscription)
  • 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)

Type: catalogue
Author: Henry Johnson
Document Title: Catalogue of the Bowdoin College art Collections
Publ. Place: Brunwick, Maine
Reference: no. 62
Remarks: (as Pieter de Jode [?])
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
Edition: 4th
Publ. Place: Brunswick, Maine
Reference: no. 65
Remarks: (as Pieter de Jode [?])
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: pp. 42-43
Reference: no. 18
Publisher: Bowdoin College
Date: 1985
			
		

Van Diepenbeeck's father, a glass painter, was probably his first teacher. Van Diepenbeeck moved to Antwerp in 1621 and began receiving commissions for both stained glass and paintings. In 1638 he became a member of the Guild of St. Luke. He evidently had a fiery temperament, for he became involved in several lawsuits and was expelled from the painter's guild in 1642. (After another suit, he was eventually readmitted in 1672.) He probably made at least two trips to France, one in the early 1630s and the second in 1650. Van Diepenbeeck painted several large windows early in his career but increasingly turned to painting and designing book illustrations. The most famous of the latter were those for Michel de Marolles, Tableaux du Temple des Muses (Paris, 1655). He also designed several series of large wall tapestries. Steadman has estimated that van Diepenbeeck produced well over 750 drawings.1 Although never a student of Rubens, he was strongly influenced by the older artist. The Bowdoin bequest contains four drawings by van Diepenbeeck—the three discussed here and a Madonna and Child Appearing to St. Ignatius.2

This sheet had been traditionally attributed to Pieter de Jode II (1606—after 1674), an Antwerp painter and engraver, who was also much influenced by Rubens. The correct attribution was made verbally by Steadman in 1972 and later affirmed by Held and Haverkamp Begemann. There is another version of this subject in the Pushkin Museum, Moscow, which is more finished and slightly different stylistically.3 The linearity of the Bowdoin drawing probably indicates that it is an early work. It also supports Steadman's observation that van Diepenbeeck never learned to draw hands very skillfully.

David P. Becker

1. Steadman 1973, vol. I, p. 72. Much of the biographical information comes from Steadman's thesis.

2. BCMA 1811.42.

3. Steadman 1973, vol. 2, pl. 95.

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).