masterdrawingsmanhattan Master Drawings Manhattan has been working in the art market since 2005 and principally sells Fine Master Drawings from the seventeenth century to early twentieth centuries.
Description
AFTER PETER PAUL RUBENS
1577 SIEGEN – 1640 ANTWERP
A GROUP OF ANGELS, FLYING THROUGH THE SKY TWO HOLDING LAUREL WREATHS
Finely executed period drawing of a portion of the main altarpiece by Peter Paul Rubens at the Antwerp Cathedral. Detailed rendering of the assumption of the Virgin depicting the crowning of Mary in ascension with a host of angels. This sheet bears Julius Held’s stamp and pencil notation, “Rubens” on the verso.
DETAILS
The drawing was sold with others in a lot, a companion subject St. Anne and the Virgin at one time considered Rubens work. From the scholarly collection of the late Dr. Julius Held, Professor Emeritus of Art, Barnard College. The works, at one time, considered by Held to be studies by Rubens, lately refuted by Anne Logan, whose refined eye subjected the drawings to further scrutiny. Nevertheless, the present sheet demonstrates an contemporary understanding drawn from the original altarpiece, and interprets Rubens’s positioning of angels in the balance of hierarchic hosts.
PROVENANCE: Christie’s Auction, Part II sale The Scholar’s Eye: Property From The Julius Held Collection, New York, Friday 30 January 2009, lot 317.
MATERIALS
Ink and wash on laid paper. Stamped with collectors initials verso lower left.
COLLECTION STAMP, JULIUS HELD
