ABRAHAM BLOEMAERT
1564-1651
92 Mars and Venus
Pen and brown ink, brown wash, white gouache height-
ening, and traces of black chalk; H: 41.2 cm (i6^3 /i6 in.);
W: 30. 2 cm (n^7 /8Ín.)
88.GG.40
MARKS AND INSCRIPTIONS: at bottom left corner, col-
lection mark of Germain Seligman; at bottom right cor-
ner, inscribed B:Spranger I fec.A^01600 in brown ink.
PROVENANCE: Francis Howard, London; Germain Se-
ligman, New York (sale, Sotheby's, New York, January
16, 1986, lot 86); art market, London.
EXHIBITIONS: Mannerist Drawings, Prints and Paintings,
Davison Art Center, Wesleyan University, Middletown,
Conn., January-February 1957, no. 59; The Nude in Art,
Vancouver Art Gallery, November 1964, no. 31 (cata-
logue by D. Shadbolt).
BIBLIOGRAPHY: J. Richardson, éd., The Collection of
Germain Seligman (New York, 1979), no. 74; K. An-
drews, Catalogue of Netherlandish Drawings in the National
Gallery of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1985), vol. i, p. 7, under
no. RSA4O8.
K. OBERHUBER REJECTED THE PREVIOUS ATTRIBUTION
of this drawing to Bartholomeus Spranger (Richardson
1979 , no. 74), placing it instead in the oeuvre of Bloe-
maert; J. Bolten has since affirmed Bloemaert's author-
ship.^1 Other drawings to which the sheet can be com-
pared include Venus and Amor (National Gallery of
Scotland inv. RSA 408) and Ads and Galatea (New York,
Ian Woodner Family collection). The latter is a prepara-
tory study for Bloemaert's painting Apollo and Daphne,
which is signed and dated 1592 (Leipzig, Museum der
Bildenden Kiinste). The Getty drawing as well as those
in Edinburgh and New York thus also seem to date to
this period, which corresponds to Bloemaert's earliest ac-
tivity as an independent artist.
The composition of the present drawing was in-
spired by the engraving Mars and Venus of 1588 by
Hendrick Goltzius after Spranger (B.276(84]v.3,3).
Bloemaert, however, eschewed the convolutions of
Spranger's Venus in favor of a figure that forms a grand
diagonal sweep; typical decorative touches include the
flying putti holding bunches of fruit.^2 Its high degree of
finish suggests that the drawing was made as a model for
an unexecuted print or as a presentation sheet.1. Conversation with L. Hendrix, 1988.- An iconographie interpretation of the drawing will appear
in A. W. Lowenthal's forthcoming monographic study of the
painting Venus and Mars Surprised by Vulcan by Joachim Wte-
wael (J. Paul Getty Museum).
2l 8 DUTCH SCHOOL • BLOEMAERT