Matthijs Cock (Antwerp circa 1509-1548)

A coastal landscape with Saint Christopher

Details

Matthijs Cock (Antwerp circa 1509-1548)
A coastal landscape with Saint Christopher
with inscription 'Coc'
point of the brush and brown and black ink, brown and grey wash, black ink framing lines
6 x 9 ¼ in. (15.1 x 23.5 cm.)

Provenance

J.G.; R.W.P. de Vries, Amsterdam, 2 January 1928; where purchased by I.Q. van Regteren Altena for 50 guilders (Inventory book: '399. t. M. Cock. Christophorus in landschap').

Literature

C. de Tolnay, 'An unknown early panel by Pieter Bruegel the Elder', in Scritti di Storia dell'Arte in onore di Lionello Venturi, Rome, 1956, I, p. 421, pl. 15.
G.T. Faggin, 'Aspetti dell'influsso di Tiziano nei Paesi Bassi', Arte Veneta, XVIII, 1964, p. 48.
H.G. Franz, Niederländische Landschaftsmalerei im Zeitalter des Manierismus, Graz, 1969, I, p. 148, note 20.
T. Riggs, Hieronymus Cock 1510-170: Printmaker and Publisher at the Sign of the Four Winds, PhD thesis, Yale, 1971, p. 275, under no. 45, pl. 52.
H. Mielke, in Pieter Bruegel d.Ä als Zeichner, exhib. cat., Berlin, Staatliche Museen, 1975, p. 112, under no. 139 and p. 113, under no. 140.
M. Russell, Visions of the Sea: Hendrick C. Vroom and the Origins of Dutch Marine Painting, Leiden, 1983, pp. 12 and 14, fig. 17a.
V. D'Haene, '"Landscapes in the New Italian or Antique Way": The Drawn Oeuvre of Matthijs Cock Reconsidered', Master Drawings, L, no. 3, 2012, no. B2, fig. 3.
V. D'Haene, in Hieronymus Cock: The Renaissance in Print, exhib. cat., Leuven, M-Museum and Paris, Fondation Custodia, 2013, p. 350, under nos. 94, note 4, and 96a.

Exhibited

Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Paris, Fondation Custodia, and Brussels, Bibliothèque Albert 1er, Le Cabinet d’un Amateur: Dessins flamands et hollandais des XVIe et XVIIe siècles d’une collection privée d’Amsterdam, 1976-77, no. 40, pl. 3 (catalogue by J. Giltaij).

Engraved

By Hieronymus Cock, with the figures altered to show Hero and Leander (Hollstein 16).

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Lot Essay

One of thirteen drawings executed by Matthijs Cock in circa 1538-44, which were etched after his death by his brother Hieronymus (1518-1570) and published in 1558 as the Landscapes with Biblical and Mythological Scenes (Hollstein 8-21). Only three drawings from the series are known: the present work, the Mountainous Landscape in the Fondation Custodia, Paris (D'Haene, op. cit., no. B1) and the Landscape with the Flight into Egypt, formerly in the Lugt collection but lost during the Second World War (D'Haene, op. cit., no. A11). The subject of the present drawing, showing Saint Christopher carrying the Christ Child in the form of an orb, was altered in Hieronymus's print from the sacred to the profane: the saint’s figure is replaced by those of the Greek mythological figures Hero and Leander (Hollstein 16).

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