In the catalogue for the 1966 Hamburg exhibition,the previous attribution to Gaspar Becerra was rejected. It had been derived from Echeverría's inventory, in which this and two other small drawings (inv. nos. 38484 and 38485, cat. nos. 86 and 87) were listed with three others as no. 27 of the “Escuela Italiana": "27. N.° 1.2.3. By Becerra. ..." The German catalogue characterized this drawing as “related in its technique to works by the elder Herrera."' In 1975, Jonathan Brown ascribed a sheet in Florence's Uffizi, in which the head has a similar expression to Herrera the Younger. Since the drawing technique is relaxed but still uncertain and the pupils are drawn in a manner identified by Brown as typical of the younger Herrera-here they are completed with brush strokes--this sheet can be considered an early work by Herrera the Younger.

Jens Hoffmann-Samland

Details about this work

• 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. 218, Abb., Abb.-Nr. , Kat.-Nr. 96

  Spanische Zeichnungen von El Greco bis Goya, Wolf Stubbe; Hamburger Kunsthalle, 1966, S. 7, Abb.-Nr. , Kat.-Nr. 9