JACOB JORDAENS (ANTWERP 1593-1678)

This drawing, not recorded in print or reproduced since the catalogue of the 1907 sale (see Provenance), is a new addition to three groups of important nude studies by Jordaens, all depicting middle-aged or older men (for a recent discussion, see N. Van Hout in Jordaens et l’antiquité, exhib. cat., Brussels, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, and Kassel, Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel, 2012-2013, pp. 54-59, nos. 18-27, ill.). The majority can be dated to the 1620s, early in the artist’s career, and are divided between the collections of the Museum Kunstpalast in Düsseldorf and the Hessisches Landesmuseum Darmstadt (R.-A. d’Hulst, Jordaens Drawings, Brussels, 1974, I, nos. A8-A20, III, figs. 8-20); an additional sheet is at the British Museum (inv. Gg,2.228; see ibid., I, no. A21, III, fig. 21). All seem to depict the same strong, bearded and curly-haired man. Of the same model, but markedly superior than the drawings in Darmstadt, Düsseldorf and London, is a sheet in a private collection that was sold at Christie’s, New York, 26 January 2011, lot 282.

Dated to the early 1640s are four studies of an older, bald, and corpulent man – the ‘Silenus type’ – of which two are untraced, and the others are in the print room of the university library in Leiden (inv. PK-T-AW-249) and in the Louvre (inv. RF 674; see D’Hulst, op. cit., I, nos. A148-A151, III, figs. 161-163). Although more accomplished, the present work seems to belong to a third group, drawn from the same model as a study datable to the second half of the 1630s at the State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg (inv. OR-14234; see D’Hulst, op. cit., I, A123, III, fig. 135); a third drawing should perhaps be related to these two sheets, although in the past it has been dated later (Frits Lugt Collection, Paris, inv. 5172; see D’Hulst, op. cit., I, no. A154, III, fig. 166). At least some of these drawings, certainly the earlier ones, seem to have been made in the context of an informal academy, where artists would unite to draw from the life model. None can be considered direct studies for paintings by Jordaens, but the best of them, including the drawing under discussion, display the powerful realism and bold use of media that distinguishes the artist’s best works.