Lot 3: Gerard David (Oudewater, near Gouda c . 1460-1523 Bruges)

Gerard David (Oudewater, near Gouda c. 1460-1523 Bruges)
Head of Christ
oil on panel, in an engaged frame
20 x 15¾ in. (50.9 x 40 cm.)

(Probably) Pablo Bosch y Barrau collection, until 1915, by descent until circa 1960.
Manuel Trallero, Barcelona, until 1989.

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 15% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.
This picture would appear to be a variation by David of a panel (43 x 31 cm.) now in the John G. Johnson Collection, Philadelphia Museum of Art (inv. no. 330; see H. van Miegroet Gerard David, Antwerp, 1989, pp. 283-4, no. 13, colour plate, p. 127; see fig. 1). The latter composition (which also shows Christ's hands and a different costume) shows diagonal hatched underdrawing around Christ's nose: a similar pattern of underdrawing shows up under infra-red reflectography in the present panel, which has suffered some abrasion (see fig. 2). Van Miegroet lists another comparable panel, with Christ showing his wounds, in the Bob Jones University Collection of Religious Paintings, Greenville, with similar costume to the Philadelphia picture (47.8 x 35.1 cm).

Dendrochronological analysis has shown that the panel on which this picture is painted, was from an oak tree of Baltic/Polish origin, and could have been used by the artist from the late 1490s. This would place it in the same decade as the Philadelphia picture, which Van Miegroet dates to the early to mid-1490s.

When this picture was acquired by the present owner in 1989, it was said to have been previously in the collection of Pablo Bosch y Barrau (1862-1915). The latter was a significant collector who donated to the Prado, after his death in 1916, no less than ninety paintings, including El Greco's Coronation of the Virgin, Goya's Santa Justa and Santa Rufina, as well as a number of earlier Flemish pictures, notably Gerard David's Rest on the Flight into Egypt (inv. no. 2643).