Abraham van Diepenbeeck ('s-Hertogenbosch 1596-1675 Antwerp)

The Virgin and Child, with Saints Roch and Sebastian, a donor (?) and an angel and putti

Details

Abraham van Diepenbeeck ('s-Hertogenbosch 1596-1675 Antwerp)
The Virgin and Child, with Saints Roch and Sebastian, a donor (?) and an angel and putti
with inscription '5/ 2' (?) (recto) and with number '186' and '16' (verso) and with a seal and number '186' (on a piece of paper seperated from the mount)
black chalk, pen and brown, grey wash, white, brown-grey and grey bodycolour, incised for transfer, fragmentary pen and brown ink framing lines
15 7/8 x 12 7/8 in. (40.3 x 32.9 cm)

Provenance

Possibly Joseph von Aken (Antwerp c. 1699-1749 London).
Arthur Bryant Triggs (1868-1936).
with E. Parsons & Sons, London, where acquired.

Brought to you by

Furio Rinaldi

frinaldi@christies.com +1 212 636 2328

Lot Essay

A versatile artist who worked in an engaging style, deeply influenced by Peter Paul Rubens, as a painter as well as a designer of glass windows, objects and sculpture, Van Diepenbeeck’s most lasting contribution was arguably as a designer of book illustrations, print series and individual plates. The present drawing, until now attributed to Rubens, is an example of his compositional style at its most monumental, comparable to sheets such as one now at the Harvard Art Museums (inv. 2013.43; see W.W. Robinson in Drawings from the Age of Bruegel, Rubens, and Rembrandt: Highlights from the Collection of the Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, MA, 2016, no. 23, ill.). Like that drawing, for which an impression of the related engraving could be identified at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (inv. 49.95.2336), the composition of the present sheet is fully incised and must have served as the model for a large devotional print.

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