MASTER OF THE EGMONT ALBUMS (DirckHendricksz. Centén?)
ACTIVE LATE SIXTEENTH-EARLY SEVENTEENTH(?) CENTURYwo The Good Samaritan
Pen and brown ink and traces of black chalk; H: 27.3 cm
(io^3 / 4 in.); W: 35 cm (i3^3 /4Ín.)
87.00.2 9
MARKS AND INSCRIPTIONS: At bottom center, traces of
trimmed inscription in brown ink; at bottom right, in-
scribed An.S^1 in brown ink; (verso) inscribed Comp.
Bartsch XVI,241 in pencil.
PROVENANCE: Sale, Christie's, London, April 10, 1985,
lot 125; art market, Boston.
EXHIBITIONS: None.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: N. Dacos, "Le maître des albums Eg-
mont: Dirck Hendricksz Centén," Oud Holland 104, no.
2 (1990), pp. 58, fig. 16; 63; 67, n. 2; 68, n. 27.THERE ARE TWO SURVIVING DRAWINGS OF THE GOOD
Samaritan by the Master of the Egmont Albums. In the
Museum's example^2 and in the other drawing of the sub-
ject (Ian Woodner Family collection),^3 the artist conflated
various episodes in the parable to arrive at two different
compositional solutions. In contrast to the Woodner
drawing, which gives equal weight to the payment of the
innkeeper and the stricken Jew transported inside, the
Museum's sheet emphasizes the latter motif, with the
nude based ultimately on a print after Michelangelo's
Leda.^4 As a whole, the foreground elements have been
given a highly sculptural treatment and have been com-
bined with a deep vista to the left in which the earlier mo-
ments in the narrative recede into the distance. The artist
thus arrived at a solution that is classicizing on various
levels, from the coherent temporal flow of the narrative,
to the plasticity of the forms, to the quotation from Mi-
chelangelo. Both this sheet and the Woodner drawing
make use of Northern print sources, notably D. V.
Coornhaert's engravings of the Good Samaritan after
Maerten van Heemskerck.^5 The dog, which became
such a prominent element of the scene in Rembrandt's
later etching, was borrowed from Dürer's engraving
Knight, Death and the Devil (B.98[io6]v.io,7). An earlier
appearance of the dog in this scene is found in a drawing
attributed to Wouter Crabeth in the British Museum
(inv. 1923.1.13.18).
First identified by P. Pouncey as the Master of the
Egmont Albums, the artist has been the subject of a re-
cent study by Dacos (1990), who has proposed that he is
identical with the Dutch painter Dirck Hendricksz. Cen-
tén (Amsterdam 1542/43-1618) and with the previously
known Neapolitan painter Teodoro d'Errico.^6 While the
drawing reflects stylistic currents of the 15805, Dacos be-
lieves the master's manner to have been retardataire and
has dated the sheet to the mid-i59os (ibid., p. 66).- Not AnB as reported by Dacos (1990, p. 67, n. 2).
- Bears watermark similar to Briquet 1345 (Basel, 1579-85;
variants include Amsterdam, 1586). - G. R. Goldner, Master Drawings from the Woodner Collection,
exh. cat. (J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, and other institu-
tions, 1983), pp. 120-21, no. 47. - The relationship to the engraving, by Cornells Bos, was
noted by Goldner (ibid., p. 120, under no. 47). - F. W. H. Hollstein, Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings
and Woodcuts, ca. 1450-1700 (Amsterdam, 1949), vol. 8, nos.
105 - 8; T. Kerrich, Catalogue of the Prints after Martin Heemskerck
(Cambridge, 1829), p. 74. - E. Haverkamp-Begemann and A.-M. Logan, European
Drawings and Watercolors in the Yale University Art Gallery 1500-
1900 (New Haven and London, 1970), vol. i, pp. 265-66, un-
der no. 499. For an assessment of the origins of this master's
drawing style, see also M. Schapelhouman, Nederlandse Tek-
eningen Omstreeks 1600: Catalogus van de Nederlandse Tekeningen
in het Rijksprentenkabinet, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, vol. 3
(suppl. to vol. 2) (The Hague, 1987), p. 180.
234 DUTCH SCHOOL • MASTER OF EGMONT ALBUMS