Lot 113: KAREL VAN MANDER III DELFT 1609/10 - 1670 COPENHAGEN

A SEATED MAN IN ORIENTAL COSTUME

A SEATED MAN IN ORIENTAL COSTUME

measurements note
386 by 245mm

black chalk, heightened with white chalk, on grey prepared paper

PROVENANCE

H.W. Campe (L.1391);
Heinrich Ehlers, his sale, Leipzig, C.G. Boerner, 9-10 May 1930, lot 212, illustrated plate XXI (as Pieter Lastman)

LITERATURE

W. Bode, Studien zur Geschichte der Holländischen Malerei, Braunschweig 1883, p. 342 (as Pieter Lastman);
K. Freise, 'Pieter Lastman, sein Leben und seine Kunst', Kunstwissenschaftliche Studien, vol. 5, Leipzig 1911, cat. no. 52 (as Pieter Lastman);
K. Bauch, 'Handzeichnungen Pieter Lastmans', Münchner Jahrbuch III/IV (1952/53), pp. 220-232, reproduced (as Pieter Lastman)

NOTE

This belongs to a series of very similar drawings by Van Mander of figures in Oriental costumes. Other examples include one in Leipzig (Museum der bildenden Künste, inv. nr. N.I. 451), two in Oslo (Nasjonalgalleriet, inv. nrs. B. 15596 and B. 55623), and at least five in Copenhagen, where the artist died (Statens Museum for Kunst, Kobberstiksammling, inv. nrs. TD 503/21-24, 29).

Several of these other drawings bear signatures and are dated Copenhagen 1670, but these inscriptions seem to have been added by another hand immediately after Van Mander's death, as an inventory of his estate was being prepared. Stylistically, the drawings seem to date from significantly earlier, and most probably relate to Van Mander's painting of the Tartar Delegation, of around 1655 (see Christian IV and Europe, exhibition catalogue, Hiller¢d, Det Nationalhistoriske Museum på Frederiksborg, 1988-9, pp. 102, 113-14, cat. nos. 313, 378).