This and the following drawing, inv. no. 38485 (cat. no. 87), which were probably produced by the same hand, came into the collection with iny. no. 38483 (cat. no. 96) as attributed to Gaspar Becerra (1520-1570). In Echeverría's inventory they were listed under no. 27 in the "Escuela Italiana" section, although their technique is clearly that of seventeenth-century Spain. The first two drawings present different views of a roughly forty-centimetertall bust of a Bald Old Man that Guido Reni (1575-1642) sculpted in Rome in the early seventeenth century. It was considered a likeness of Seneca. A bronze copy found its way into the Museo Arqueológico de Madrid in 1867, and there is a terra-cotta version at the Palazzo di Venezia in Rome.[1]
The “Seneca” bust also appears in Juan Conchillos Falcós (1641-1711) drawing Allegory of Painting,[2] demonstrating that the bust was well known during the seventeenth century. The Biblioteca Nacional preserves a drawing of the same head in a comparable technique (Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional, inv. DIB 13/1/70) that Enrique Lafuente Ferrari attributed to Francisco de Herrera the Elder.[3] In their Corpus, Diego Angulo Íñiguez and Alfonso Pérez Sánchez published both Hamburg sheets as from the circle of Herrera the Elder. The horizontal crease at chin level that appears in this drawing and the following one suggests that the two come from the same larger sheet of paper, or that they were stored together and folded in the same way.

Jens Hoffmann-Samland


1 Madrid, Museo Arqueológico Nacional, height 154 in. (40 cm), inv. no. 1976/51/22; Rome, Museo Nazionale del Palazzo di Venezia, terra-cotta, 14 1/2 x 13 x 10 in.
(37 x 33 x 25.5 cm), inv. PV 10588.
2 See Espinós Diaz 1994, 248–49, no. 94.
3 See Lafuente Ferrari 1937, 43, figs. 4-6.

Details zu diesem Werk

• Beschriftung

  Beschriftung fremd: Auf dem Verso in der Mitte nummeriert: "149" (Bleistift)

  Unten bezeichnet: "j[?] villain[?]

• Provenienz

  [José Atanasio Echeverría]; Julian Benjamin Williams, Seville (d. 1866); John Wetherell (?) (d. 1865); Horatio/Nathan Wetherell (?) (until 1874); Frederick William Cosens, London (from 1874 to 1890); Sotheby's, London, auction of the property of Frederick William Cosens (from November 11 to 21, 1890); Bernard Quaritch Ltd., London (from November 1890 to July 1891); acquired by the Hamburger Kunsthalle (July 14, 1891).

• Bibliographie

  Spanish Drawings 1400-1600. A corpus of Spanish Drawings., Diego Angulo, Alfonso E. Pérez Sánchez, 1975, S. 25, Abb.-Nr.

  The Spanish Gesture. Drawings from Murillo to Goya in the Hamburger Kunsthalle, Jens Hoffmann-Samland, with contributions by María Cruz de Carlos Varona, Gabriele Finaldi, José Manuel Matilla u. a., 2014, S. 216, Abb., Abb.-Nr. , Kat.-Nr. 86

  Die Spanischen Handzeichnungen in der Hamburger Kunsthalle zu Hamburg, August Liebmann Mayer, 1918, S. 110-111, Abb.-Nr.

  Spanische Zeichnungen von El Greco bis Goya, Wolf Stubbe; Hamburger Kunsthalle, 1966, S. 6-7, Abb.-Nr.

  A Corpus of Spanish Drawings, vol. III Seville School 1600 to 1650, Angulo Íñiguez and Pérez Sánchez; Herausgeber: Harvey Miller Publisher, 1985, S. 29, Abb. S. pl. XXVI, Abb.-Nr. , Kat.-Nr. 85