The clear hatching strokes in this work were executed with a broad attack and very even, short curves, especially in the cherub. They establish the body's forms with chiaroscuro, and its contours with somewhat longer lines. The right wing is drawn with the same intensity- thanks to the curved hatching, it almost seems to move.
The former attribution to Francisco de Herrera the Younger[1] was based on a comparison of this sheet with drawings in the Galleria degli Uffizi that have since been identified as works by Francisco Herrera the Elder.[2] The difficulties involved in distinguishing between the hands of father and son also arise in a drawing at Madrid's Biblioteca Nacional that bears numerous similarities to this one. The Biblioteca Nacional drawing was formerly attributed to the elder Herrera with some reservation, but since the time of Jonathan Brown's 1975 publication it is considered an early work by the son.[3] Since the present sheet exhibits the drawing style typical of Herrera the Elder and is more rigorously worked out, without the more casual strokes typical of Herrera the Younger, the attribution to the father now seems reasonable.

Jens Hoffmann-Samland


1 Stubbe (dir.) 1966, 21.
2 Angulo Iñiguez and Pérez Sánchez 1985, 28, no. 78.
3 Two Putti Holding an Escutcheon, Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional, inv. no. DIB 13/1/64. See Brown 1975, pl. 4. Inv. no. 38557 See pp. 44-45

Details about this work

• Label

  Beschriftung fremd: Auf dem Verso nummeriert: "143" (Bleistift, unterstrichen)

• Provenance

  [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).

• Bibliography

  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. 213; Abb., Abb.-Nr. , Kat.-Nr. 70

  Spanische Zeichnungen von El Greco bis Goya, Wolf Stubbe; Hamburger Kunsthalle, 1966, S. 21, Abb.-Nr. , Kat.-Nr. 145

  A Corpus of Spanish Drawings, vol. III Seville School 1600 to 1650, Angulo Íñiguez and Pérez Sánchez; Herausgeber: Harvey Miller Publisher, 1985, Abb.-Nr. , Kat.-Nr. 78

  Herrera el Mozo y el Barroco total, Herausgeber: Benito Navarrete Prieto, 2023, Abb. S. 136, Abb.-Nr. , Kat.-Nr. 5