Circle of Cornelis van Poelenburch (Utrecht 1594/5-1667)

According to the inscription on the verso of this drawing it should be given to Willem Schellinks (1627-1678). However, it is stylistically different to a drawing by Schellinks, also showing the Grotto of Virgil, previously in the I.Q. van Regteren Altena collection (Christie's, London, 10 July 2014, lot 65). The rendering of the trees and plants is especially different, and seems to be closer to that of a drawing by Poelenburch in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (RP-T-1989-89; P. Schatborn, Drawn to Warmth: Seventeenth-Century Dutch Artists in Italy, exhib. cat., Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, 2001, p. 59, fig. D).

We are grateful to Peter Schatborn for having suggested the attribution to Cornelis van Poelenburch.