Sir Anthony Van Dyck (Antwerp 1599-1641 London)

Ceres carrying a flaming torch in a chariot drawn by serpents, on her way to Pluto's kingdom

Details

Sir Anthony Van Dyck (Antwerp 1599-1641 London)
Ceres carrying a flaming torch in a chariot drawn by serpents, on her way to Pluto's kingdom
point of the brush, brown wash
6 3/8 x 9½ in. (16.4 x 24.1 cm.)

Provenance

C. Fairfax Murray (according to a pencil inscription, verso). Ludwig Burchard, and by descent to the present owner.

Literature

Collection of Drawings by the Old Masters formed by C. Fairfax Murray, London, [n.d.], no. 475.
H. Vey, Die Zeichnungen Anton Van Dycks, Brussels, 1962, pp. 227-8, no. 158, fig. 199.
A.W.F.M. Meij and M. de Haan, Rubens, Jordaens, Van Dyck and their Circle: Flemish Master Drawings from the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam, 2001, p. 72, under no. 5, illus.

Exhibited

Antwerp, Rubenshuis, and Rotterdam, Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Antoon Van Dyck: tekeningen en olieverfschetsen, 1960, no. 58.

Lot Essay

A copy after a relief on the Proserpine Sarcophagus which was brought in 1607 to the Casino of Palazzo Rospigliosi in Rome. Vey (op. cit.) dates Van Dyck's drawing to 1622-3. The same sarcophagus had been drawn by Rubens some fifteen years earlier, and a copy of his drawing is in the Rubenshuis, Antwerp (Tekeningen van P.P. Rubens, Antwerp, 1956, no. 16), while the relief was also drawn by Poussin (P. Rosenberg and L.-A. Prat, Nicolas Poussin 1594-1665: Catalogue raisonné des dessins, Milan, 1994, no. 240).

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