Anonym (Andalusien 17. Jh.), spätes 17. Jahrhundert
Kartuschenornament, oben Kopf eines alten Mannes, Spätes 17. Jahrhundert
This sheet comes from the collection of Hungarian art historian Professor Simon Meller (1875-1949), who became a professor in Munich in 1901 and, in 1910, director of the graphic collections of the National Gallery in Budapest. The work was purchased from his wife, Selena Clara Meller, in Paris, as a drawing by Alonso Cano.
Harold Wethey questioned that attribution, and in the 1959 acquisitions report, Wolf Stubbe suggested that the reason for it was the abundance of similar decorative designs in Cano's œuvre.[1] Since the 1966 Hamburg exhibition catalogue, the drawing has been listed as “Seville, 18th century," but without particular justification.
Similarities to works from the seventeenth century, however, are seen, for example, in drawings by Antonio Garcia Reinoso,[2] particularly with respect to the depiction of the putti and the ornaments, yet the hatching in the Hamburg sheet is too uneven to make even a vague attribution possible. In the handling of the pen, however, the sheet comes close to works by Francisco de Herrera the Elder. The present sheet compares favorably with Herrera the Elder's Study of a Male Head with Beard,[3] since both display short, curved pen strokes and the straight hatching in the area of the eyes. Against such a background, a concrete attribution is as yet impossible; however, a dating to the seventeenth century seems more likely.
Jens Hoffmann-Samland
1. Jahrbuch der Hamburger Kunsthalle, Erwerbungsberichte, vol. 4, 1959, 159.
2. Córdoba, Museo de Bellas Artes, inv. nos. CE0863D and CE0864D.
3. Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado, inv. no. D 135.