Circle of Frans Floris (Antwerp 1519/20 - 1570)
Saint Luke
pen and brown ink on laid paper
184 x 140 mm
This remarkably well-preserved 16th-century Flemish drawing is stylistically close to one of the towering figures of sixteenth-century art in Antwerp, Frans Floris, but it must be a copy by one...
This remarkably well-preserved 16th-century Flemish drawing is stylistically close to one of the towering figures of sixteenth-century art in Antwerp, Frans Floris, but it must be a copy by one of Floris’s numerous workshop assistants after a lost drawing by the master. Several other depictions by Floris of the evangelist exist, among which stand out a painting at the Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten Antwerpen (inv. 114), a possibly related drawing in the Kunstsammlung der Georg-August-Universität Göttingen (inv. H 254), and a series of four engravings representing the Evangelists. The drawing by Floris on which the present sheet was based may have been part of a series depicting all four Evangelists with their traditional attributes. Floris’s composition may have been inspired by an engraving by Agostino Veneziano after Giulio Romano, in which the saint also turns his back to the viewer, and which is also one of part of such a series.
Provenance
Private collection, Italy, 17th Century (?);
Sir Erasmus Philipps, 5th Baronet (1699-1743), Picton Castle, Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire;
by descent to Richard Philipps, 1st Baron of Milford (1744-1823), Picton Castle (L. 2687)(label with his coat of arms on the verso of the secondary support);
by descent to Sir John Philipps (died 1949), Picton Castle, sold to Calmann;
with Hans Calmann (1899-1982), London;
Nathalie and Hugo Weisgall, New York.
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