Pen and brown ink, brown wash, heightened with white, partially oxydized;
dated lower left: 1629; inscribed lower right: Blomart
205 x 162 mm
PROVENANCE:
Pseudo-Crozat (Lugt 474)
Holtkott collection
The present drawing is most probably part of a set of the four evangelists. Although a printed version is not known, the strong pen lines, dark wash, and white highlights clearly map out and separate both the linear and tonal values of a chiaroscuro woodcut. Examples of two other evangelists are known, all of approximately the same size and using the same technique. A drawing of St. John is at Stanford University (1). However, a drawing of St. Matthew in the Yale University Art Gallery (2) is a copy after a lost original. A copy of our drawing is in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (3), and a copy of the Stanford St. John has also appeared on the art market (4).
The drawing of the Stanford St. John can be linked to a painting in the Art Museum of Princeton University (5) where the evangelists are seated around a table, each intensely absorbed in his own transcription. Two preparatory drawings are known for this composition (6). Roethlisberger dates them to around 1612, the painting between 1612-1615. Whether the drawings of the individual evangelists preceded the more complex composition or were later adaptions is not entirely clear, although our drawing bears the date 1629 (7). Four paintings of the individual evangelists from Bloemaert's workshop are known. Roethlisberger tentatively dates them to the 1620s or later (8).
Abraham's youngest son, Frederick Bloemaert(c.1610 – c.1669), used the head of St. Luke's ox on the upper left of our drawing as a model for the frontispiece of the second part in the Tekenboek (Drawing book), a collection of visual models for teaching young artists (9). A first printed edition was published between 1650 and 1656.
We are grateful to Jaap Bolten, who confirmed the attribution on the basis of a photograph (10).
1. Inv.no. 1977.11; see: Betsy G. Fryberger, in: Stanford University Museum of Art. The Drawing Collection, Seattle London 1993, pp.32, no.30,(ill.) (183x145 mm)
2. Inv.no. 1961-63.091; see: Egbert Haverkamp-Begemann and Anne-Marie S. Logan, European Drawings and Watercolors in the Yale University Art Gallery 1500-1900. New Haven, London 1970, vol.I, p.356, no.A183 (191x147 mm)
3. Inv.no.: 61:45; see: K.G. Boon, Netherlandish Drawings of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries. The Hague 1978, p.18, no.38 (ill.) (193x151 mm)
4. David Daniels collection, his sale Sotheby´s, New York, 25.4.1978, lot 54
5. Marcel G. Roethlisberger, „The Four Evangelists by Abraham Bloemaert“, in: Record of the Art Museum Princeton University, 51, no.1, 1992, pp.2-14
6. One in London, the Courtauld Institute Galleries, the Witt Collection, the other in Berlin (Dahlem), Stiftung Preussischer Kunstbesitz, Kupferstichkabinett; see. Roethlisberger, 1992, op.cit., pp.8 (ill.)
7. Jaap Bolten dates the Stanford Saint John c. 1605-10. See: Betsy G. Fryberger, op.cit., p.32
8. Roethlisberger, 1992, op.cit., pp.12
9. Marcel G. Roethlisberger, Abraham Bloemaert and His Sons. Paintings and Prints. Doornspijk 1993, vol.I, p.389, figs.T155, T155a
10 Letter, dated 19.02.1998
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