ABRAHAM BLOEMAERT
102 Three Studies of a Woman
rFour Studies of Hands and a
Counterproofofa Kneeling
Young Man
vRed chalk and white gouache heightening; H: 25.1 cm
(9^7 /s in.); W: 17.2 cm (6V 4 in.)
83.06.375 (SEE PLATE 12)
MARKS AND INSCRIPTIONS: (Recto) at top right corner,
inscribed 76 in brown ink; (verso) inscribed 77 in brown
ink.
PROVENANCE: Andre Giroux, Paris (sale, Paris, April
18-19, 1904, Part of lot 175); Loys Delteil, Paris; Mme
L. Delteil, Paris (sale, Paris, February 21, 1935); private
collection, Paris.
EXHIBITIONS: Dessins des ecoles du nord, Galerie Claude
Aubry, Paris, 1974, no. 12.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: C. vanHasselt, Rembrandt and His Cen-
tury: Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century, exh. cat.,
Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, and Institut Neer-
landais, Paris, 1978, p. 21 , under no. n; K. G. Boon, At-
traverso il Cinquecento neerlandese: Disegni delta Collezione
Frits Lugt Institut Neerlandais Parigi, exh. cat., Istituto
Universitario Olandese di Storia dellArte, Florence, and
Institut Neerlandais, Paris, 1980, p. 41, under no. 27.THIS is ONE OF 136 BLOEMAERT DRAWINGS THAT
were in the Giroux collection, Paris, until 1904, and that
consist mainly of figure studies in red chalk. The recto
contains three renderings of the same model, who may
also be represented in a drawing in the Frits Lugt Collec-
tion, Institut Neerlandais, Paris (inv. 4881; van Hasselt
1978 , no. n), and in several others. There is no painting
or print by Bloemaert that relates directly to these stud-
ies, but the profile image looking upward recalls the Vir-
gin in the Annunciation by Jacob Matham after Bloemaert
(B.65[i47Jv.4,3). The counterproof of a kneeling man on
the verso bears a general resemblance to various depic-
tions of shepherds in Adoration scenes by Bloemaert,
and the different hands represented on the verso would
accord with gestures for such a depiction, but none are
verso
close enough to be connected with specific composi-
tions. The hand studies are comparable to those on a sheet
in the Musee des Beaux-Arts, Rouen.^1 Van Hasselt (1978,
no. n) and J. Bolten^2 have dated the Lugt sheet to the
16205, a date that would appear correct for this drawing
as well. Since these and other drawings from the Giroux
series bear numbers at the upper right, it is likely that van
Hasselt was correct in proposing that they all came from
a single album.1. O. Popovitch, Choix de quelques peintures et dessins de la do-
nation H. etS. Baderou (Rouen, 1977), n.p.
2. Bolten has proposed that this album was probably meant as
an exercise sketchbook to be copied by students in Bloemaert's
atelier, rather than as a collection of preparatory studies (in con-
versation with L. Hendrix, February 1987).230 DUTCH SCHOOL • BLOEMAERT