Maarten van Heemskerck (Heemskerk 1498-1574 Haarlem)

After a relief, originally part of a sarcophagus, which was incorporated into the wall of a house, Via Aracoeli 51, in Rome.
The drawing can be compared to one in the Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin, on paper with the same watermark (C. Hülsen and H. Egger, Die römischen Skizzenbucher von Marten van Heemskerck im Königlichen Kupferstichkabinett zu Berlin, Berlin, 1913-16, I, fol. 4 recto). The drawing style, with an accent on the outlines of the putti, is comparable in two sheets by Heemskerck copying putti from the Sala di Costantino in the Vatican, one in the Rijksmuseum (K.G. Boon, Catalogue of the Dutch and Flemish Drawings in the Rijksmuseum: Netherlandish Drawings of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries, The Hague, 1978, no. 312), the other recently acquired by the Teylers Museum, Haarlem (inv. KT 2012 004), and in another copy after the antique showing a putto and goat (Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin, Hülsen and Egger, op. cit., I, fol. 77 recto).

We are grateful to Dr. Ilja Veldman who has confirmed the attribution on the basis of a digital photograph and kindly assisted with the cataloguing of the drawing.