February 2024
Thursday, February 1
Trois Crayons (French, "three crayons") The technique of drawing with black, white and red chalks (à trois crayons) on a paper of middle tone, for example mid-blue or buff. It was particularly popular in early and mid-18th century France with artists such as Antoine Watteau and François Boucher. (Clarke, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art Terms)
Coming Up
Dear all,
Greetings from Trois Crayons. Tom here, reporting from New York, where Master Drawings New York is in full swing, and for those of you who are braving the cold of the city, the programme of exhibitions, talks and events rolls on for a few more days. Catch them while you can.
Today, Christie’s hosts its sale of Old Master drawings, including that van Dyck, and the results of yesterday’s flagship sale at Sotheby’s are viewable here. In the UK, as part of the Acceptance in Lieu (AIL) scheme, a Rembrandt drawing, once in the collection of Frederic Lord Leighton, has been permanently allocated to the British Museum, and an early drawing by Sir Thomas Lawrence has also been allocated to the Royal Academy of Art. In legal matters, the trial between Dmitry Rybolovlev and Sotheby’s, has finally concluded with Sotheby’s cleared of aiding and abetting fraud. The former was seeking $377 million in damages from the latter for its perceived collusion with Swiss art dealer Yves Bouvier in providing inflated pricing on a number of important works, including Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi. And in Paris, in slightly more sobering news, the French art historian Louis-Antoine Prat - the chair of the Friends of the Louvre - has announced that he will not seek re-election following accusations of antisemitism and slander.
With a look forward to the months ahead, it’s set to be a big year for devotees of blue paper. The exhibition “Drawing on Blue” opened this week at the J. Paul Getty Museum and a new publication, “Venetian Disegno: New Frontiers”, co-edited by former guest, Dr Maria Aresin, and featuring essays from this month’s guest, Dr Alexa McCarthy, has just been published with Paul Holberton Publishing. A free panel discussion to celebrate the launch of the catalogue is being held at the Courtauld on 8 February. Sign up here to attend. If you miss out on both of these, fear not. Blue paper will be back at the Courtauld in October, with a new display in the Gilbert and Ildiko Butler Drawings Gallery, entitled “Drawn to Blue: Artist’s use of blue paper”. I can feel a “Demystifying Drawings” special coming on.
For this month’s newsletter we have picked out current events from across the UK and around the world, delved into the thorny issue of attribution with Greg Rubinstein, spoken with Dr Alexa McCarthy about a favourite drawing, and Tyr Baudouin has reviewed ‘From Scribble to Cartoon’ at the Museum Plantin Moretus. As ever, a selection of literary and audio highlights follows the real or fake section.
If you would like to contribute to the newsletter in future, or if you have any recommendations, feedback and event listings for inclusion, please send them on to tom@troiscrayons.art.
EVENTS
For a more comprehensive overview of ongoing exhibitions and talks, please visit our new Events page.
UK
Wordlwide
Drawing of the Month
Benedetto Caliari (1538 – 1598)
Mucius Scaevola Before Porsenna
Pen in brown and brush in brown and white on blue paper, 342 × 259 mm, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, inv. no.: RP-T-1953-323(R,V)
Dr Alexa McCarthy, Executive Director of the Greater Des Moines Public Art Foundation, has kindly chosen our fifth drawing of the month.
Mucius Scaevola before Porsenna is one of two preparatory drawings by Benedetto Caliari (1538–1598) in the collection of the Rijksmuseum. The drawings are from the Album Borghese, according to inscriptions on old mounts, and the owner has been tentatively identified as Venetian collector Zaccaria Sagredo (1653–1729). The present drawing depicts the story of Roman citizen Mucius Scaevola burning his hand before Etruscan ruler Porsenna to prove his valour, having been condemned to death for attempting to murder Porsenna. Porsenna was so taken with Scaevola’s bravery that he set him free. Scaevola was granted fertile land along the Tiber, forming the origin story of Rome’s important Scaevola family.
Mucius Scaevola demonstrates the symbiosis between drawings on blue paper and painted colorito in the Caliari workshop. Benedetto’s compositions reflect the style of his brother, Paolo Veronese’s (1528–1588), who from the early 1550s onwards, executed independent ‘chiaroscuri,’ utilizing either blue paper, or, more commonly, white sheets with a blue preparation. Here using blue paper, Benedetto explores the impact of light and shade on colour. On the recto of the sheet is a chiaroscuro drawing conveying the tonal effects of light and shade through ink and wash. On the verso, traced pen-and-ink outlines of the composition on the recto serve to block out colours which are labelled in the artist’s hand. Making use of both sides of the same sheet, Benedetto detailed the interplay of light and shadow, as well as the use of specific colours and their respective hues. The colours of white, red, beretino or an ashy grey, yellow (zallo), and blue (azzurro), are written throughout the composition. The shorthand and cross-outs suggest that this could be a preparatory drawing for a project that either no longer survives or was not realized.
The project for which Benedetto’s drawing was executed is uncertain, though Carlo Ridolfi mentions frescos in the Palazzo Mocenigo, including a scene of Mucius Scaevola, in which the colours imitated the marble. Paolo Veronese also created an interplay of textures with fictive sculptures and cameo reliefs in his fresco works, both within and on the exterior of palazzi in the Veneto. The drawing and painting techniques employed by Paolo Veronese impacted Benedetto’s stylistic development. Mucius Scaevola before Porsenna demonstrates the centrality of line, light, shade, and colour in Benedetto’s process of disegno, which was facilitated by the use of blue paper.
The drawing is featured in Alexa’s essay, ‘Legacies on blue paper: Drawing in the Bassano, Caliari, and Tintoretto Family Workshops,’ in Venetian Disegno: New Frontiers, edited by Maria Aresin and Thomas Dalla Costa, available now.
Review
From Scribble to Cartoon: Drawings from Bruegel to Rubens (17 Nov 2023 – 18 Feb 2024)
Museum Plantin Moretus, Antwerp
reviewed by: Tyr Baudouin (Galerie Lowet de Wotrenge)
Image: Sir Peter Paul Rubens, Museum Plantin-Moretus, Antwerp, inv. MPM.TEK389
Paul Vredeman de Vries, Museum Plantin-Moretus, Antwerp, inv. AV.1212.19-30
Joris Hoefnagel, Museum Plantin-Moretus, Antwerp, inv. PK.OT.00535
In an elegant note written - in Latin - above his design for the title-page of the book Epigrammata/Poemata, published by the Plantin press in Antwerp in 1634, Rubens wrote: “I do not know, whether you will like my fabrication. I must say, though, that I am really pleased with this invention of mine - indeed I almost congratulate myself on it.” Although rather humble in size and visually maybe not as striking as other works by the master in the exhibition, the design perfectly captures the essence of Rubens as a pictor doctus (‘learned painter’): an erudite painter-humanist who was well versed in mythology and literature - and evidently very much aware of his artistic and intellectual prowess.
The drawing is but one of the many gems included in the exhibition From Scribble to Cartoon: Drawings from Bruegel to Rubens, which showcases many of the very best Flemish master drawings kept in private and public collections in Flanders. The works in the exhibition have been sorted into three groups, according to their function: study drawings, drawings intended as designs, and independent works on paper. Although the categorization of some works can certainly be discussed, this generally works well. The Antwerp ‘big three’ - Rubens, van Dyck and Jordaens - are of course well represented, but the exhibition alternates their - often well-known - works with surprising sheets by many lesser-known or even anonymous masters, such as the delightful design for towel racks by Paul Vredeman de Vries, or the deceptively simple yet brilliant study of trees in chalk on blue paper by an anonymous Brussels landscape painter. Furthermore, the exhibition includes several works from a large group of drawings the museum recently acquired from a private collection, most of which have never before been exhibited.
The first room is dedicated to studies in a wide range of shapes and sizes, including botanical, landscape and anatomical studies, as well as studies after (antique) sculpture and portrait studies. Although the selection of works here is not particularly coherent, the sheer quality of the works displayed, such as Jordaens’ Five Women chatting (private collection, Antwerp) more than makes up for that. Next up, the ‘design’ section contains some of the finest works in the exhibition, especially the freely executed crabbelingen (scribbles) by van Dyck and Rubens, true primi pensieri serving as the first step in the design process. Cleverly, some of the designs are accompanied by the objects that were made after them, such as the sculpture depicting Honos, the ancient Roman deified abstraction of honour, by the Flemish sculptor Hans van Mildert, which was executed after a design by Rubens.
The third section of the exhibition is devoted to so-called ‘independent’ works, which can be seen as works of art in their own right. Highlights include several extremely refined miniatures on vellum by Joris Hoefnagel - such as his Allegory for Abraham Ortelius - and Johannes Wierix, as well as works by Hendrick van Balen and Bartholomeus Spranger. One final surprise here is a volume of the Antwerp liggeren (the manuscript in which the members of the Antwerp Guild of St Luke were registered) which Cornelis Floris II decorated with 28 initials and which has rarely - if ever - been exhibited.
The exhibition continues through February 18, and this author wholeheartedly recommends a (second) visit. For those unable to make it, the lavishly illustrated and well-written catalogue will have to do.
DEMYSTIFYING DRAWINGS
How To: know when an attribution is ‘right’
Greg Rubinstein, Senior Director and Head of the Old Master Drawings Department at Sotheby’s, discusses the complex issue of authorship.
THE SIGHT
When it comes to questions of attribution art experts are often thought to have a sixth sense. They are almost inexplicably attuned to the innate characteristics of an artist’s graphic personality. Philip Pouncey, perhaps the most admired of all drawings attributionists, is said to have had had an uncanny aptitude. His obituary in the Burlington Magazine cites a classic example of this oracular ability: “No drawings by an obscure Ferrarese imitator of Michelangelo, Sebastiano Filippi, called Bastianino (1532/4- 1602), were known when Pouncey remarked, apropos of a black chalk study of a crouching nude man which had lain disregarded for more than two hundred years among the anonymous Italian drawings at Christ Church, 'If Bastianino had made drawings, this is exactly the sort of drawing that one would have expected from him': an observation triumphantly confirmed by the subsequent discovery in an altar-piece by the artist, of the figure for which the drawing undoubtedly served as a study.”
But what about those who do not possess ‘the sight’, however? Are there more empirical methods for addressing problems of authorship?
Drawings from the 15th to 18th centuries are rarely signed and so with what degree of certainty do we know who drew them?
Well, to paraphrase the immortal words of Supertramp, some you do, and some you don’t, and some you just can’t tell. The degree of certainty that is possible varies immensely from one drawing to the next, and one artist to another. But if you apply a consistent and logical approach to the process of thinking through what the correct attribution might be, you can often get a very long way towards certainty.
For almost all artists – at least those who have left us a reasonable corpus of works on paper – there are some drawings that simply can’t rationally be attributed to anyone else: drawings that are signed, those that are incontrovertibly linked to the artist by some other documentary record, and drawings that are clearly direct preparatory studies for other works by the artist in question. These ‘documentary drawings’ then serve as the springboard for other attributions, made on the basis of stylistic or technical closeness.
Step 1A: Evidence.
Gather all physical evidence: watermarks, inscriptions, collection marks, signatures, mount, condition and so on.
Step 1B: Evidence.
Gather all documentary evidence: given provenance, sale history, publications, reproductions and so on.
Step 2: ANALYSIS.
Is the paper type consistent with the drawing’s style? Are the artist’s materials consistent with the period and location? How reliable is the inscription? If the drawing is published, how reliable is the publication? What is the function of the drawing?
Step 3: CONCLUSIONS.
A combination of the empirical and the subjective. What ‘circle of possibility’ does the evidence indicate? Does instinct match evidence?
There’s no getting away from the fact that attributions made solely on stylistic grounds are subjective, and no two people see a drawing in exactly the same way, but systematic methodology of analysis, and a clear vision not only of the work of the artist in question but also of the broader artistic milieu, counts for a lot. At this point, I hear the much-missed voice of the great Dutch art historian and teacher Egbert Haverkamp Begemann whispering in my ear. He always spoke about how one had to construct in one’s mind a ‘circle of possibility’ for each artist’s style, starting with the unarguable, documentary works and building out from there, on the basis of stylistic comparisons. Depending on the artist and the milieu, the ‘circles of possibility’ for other artists may be closer or further away, and more or less straightforward to define, but it is only once you have as good a sense as possible of these different circles that you can begin to locate your unattributed drawing correctly within the overall pattern.
It's also worth mentioning the significance in this context of a drawing’s provenance, and its publication history. If, say, an illustrious early collector such as Pierre Jean Mariette attributed a drawing to a particular 18th-century French artist, there is a very good chance that that is really who it is by – Mariette very possibly bought it directly from the artist, or at least from someone who knew them personally. And in that situation, the more obscure the attribution, the more likely it is to be right. Similarly, if generations of top drawings scholars and connoisseurs have recognised and published a drawing as being by a particular artist that also adds weight to the attribution, though it is also very important to be aware of the evolution of scholarship (think only of the constant discussions regarding attributions of Rembrandt/Rembrandt School drawings!). And I would also say that even if earlier attributions and publications can help point you in the right direction, you can never simply accept them unquestioningly. If you want to maximise your chances of getting it as right as possible, you need to start from first principles every time, going all the way back to the question of what period and school you are dealing with, then gradually narrowing things down, until you can’t go any further.
Is there an artist whose graphic idiosyncrasies are unmistakable to you, and, if so, what are they and to whom do they belong?
There are certainly quite a few artists whose drawings you’re never going to mistake for anyone else’s, but usually that’s because of a particularly distinctive combination of materials, handling and subject matter, rather than Morellian recognition of specific quirks. For example, David Teniers’s drawings can be immediately identified thanks to their unique combination of subject matter, costume and facial types, very distinctive broad, rhythmic hatching, and exclusive use of graphite (rare in Dutch and Flemish 17th-century drawings).
Are there any particular ‘tells’ that help you to read a drawing and assess its qualities?
Leaving aside any evidence provided by the materials – the paper, the ink etc. – there definitely are clues in the actual handling of the media that can help you see that a drawing is a copy, or even a fake. For example, in those 20th-century fake Guardis and Canalettos that we see all the time, even if you don’t spot the weaknesses in perspective and composition, you can immediately tell they are not spontaneously drawn, because there is a little dot of ink at the end of almost every pen line. That is a sign that the hand making those lines was moving slowly, stopping at the end of each one before lifting the pen from the paper – totally the opposite of how Guardi or Canaletto dashed off their drawings.
Another thing to watch out for is a disparity in terms of quality and success between the overall composition and the individual elements within it. If you have what looks like a study for a rather accomplished and successfully resolved composition, but the figures themselves are not well drawn, or the perspective is confusing here and there, then there’s a good chance that what you actually have is a copy of a good painting or drawing, drawn by a different, less talented artist.
But overall, judging quality is mainly about understanding what the artist was trying to achieve when they made the drawing, and judging how successful you think they have been in realising those aims.
Would you describe cataloguing – or ‘categorising’ - as more of a science or an art?
It is definitely a bit of both! What we do when cataloguing a drawing for sale is to try and work out as accurately as possible how and when it came into being. If we can attribute it to a specific artist, so much the better, but that’s obviously not always possible, which is why I like to use the term ‘categorising’.
Essentially, this is a three-stage process: identifying all the relevant evidence; analysing and interpreting that evidence; and drawing the relevant conclusions.
The evidence you need to identify and analyse can be physical (paper structure, watermarks, media employed, indications of use such as pricking/indenting/squaring, state of conservation, signatures and inscriptions, collectors’ marks) or documentary (provenance, sale history, publications).
When analysing the evidence, you ask yourself a series of questions, such as whether everything you are seeing in terms of materials is convincing and consistent, whether those materials tell you anything about where and when the drawing was made or how it was used, what do any inscriptions or collector’s marks tell you, how does the condition affect what you are seeing, how reliable or relevant are any documents or publications, and so on. You also need to try to understand the drawing’s function; an academic figure study, a finished study for a print and a landscape sketch are going to be very differently drawn, even if they are all by the same artist.
Then, based on all this, we try and fit the drawing into our mental database of styles and images. Did it come with an attribution? Did we have any initial reactions or thoughts about what it might be? How do those ideas hold up under scrutiny, in the light of analysis of all the evidence?
Judging whether two drawings are or are not by the same hand is perhaps in some ways an art, but the process of getting as close as possible to the right attribution or ‘categorisation’ definitely involves being totally methodical – totally scientific – in approach.
Part two of the interview will follow in next month’s newsletter.
Real or Fake
Can we fool you? The term “fake” may be slightly sensationalist when it comes to old drawings. Copying originals and prints has long formed a key part of an artist’s education and with the passing of time the distinction between the two can be innocently mistaken.
In response to comments labelling a previous Real or Fake section “too easy”, the ante has been upped here. Top marks if you can crack this one and show your working.
Scroll to the end of the newsletter for answers.
Resources and Recommendations
to listen
An Oligarch vs Sotheby’s in a New York court, Singapore Art Week, Zanele Muholi
The Art Newspaper’s Ben Luke, contributing editor, and Tim Schneider, acting art market editor, dissect the civil trial between the Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev and Sotheby’s. Rybolovlev accuses Sotheby’s of aiding the Swiss art dealer Yves Bouvier in an alleged fraud. It relates to the sale of major works of art, including the controversial Leonardo painting Salvator Mundi.
to watch
Two short ones this week. In the first video professor Catherine Whistler, Research Keeper of Western Art Department at the Ashmolean in Oxford talks passionately about a drawing on blue paper by Titian. At the bottom of the page, Noël Annesley, Senior Consultant at Christie’s, talks about a drawing by Giorgio Vasari.
to read
German Design Drawings Explored
A fascinating webpage that details some of the results and stories that have arisen from the Ashmolean’s recent research into a group of more than 300 German drawings in the collection. Designs for the production of artworks in metal, glass, and wood, as well as other artworks on paper, such as prints, and book illustrations are all examined and explained detail. Highlights include a number of drawings from Hans Holbein the Younger and a newly-discovered sketch by Albrecht Dürer. Interesting drawings by the likes of Hans Sebald Beham and Lucas Killian are also explored, in addition to the sheets of some lesser-known or anonymous artists.
answer
You may have guessed that this was a trick question, but just how many levels of trickery did you ascertain? Pictures produced in reverse often denote the use of reproductive media: an engraving or a counterproof - a counterproof is created when a drawing or print is passed through a roller press beneath a dampened piece of paper. This case contains both processes. Whilst the upper drawing is indeed a counterproof of the lower one, neither is truly an original drawing. The upper drawing is in fact a copy of an 18th century engraving by Henricus Josephus Antonissen (1737-1794), and Antonissen’s engraving is a reproduction of a 17th century painting by Aelbert Cuyp (1620-1691). Simple.
The mastermind behind this, and many similar examples of deceit, has been identified as Karel la Fargue (1738-1793), an 18th century forger who produced drawings in the style of 17th century Dutch Masters, using motifs borrowed directly from paintings, prints and drawings. Originally la Fargue’s homage to these earlier artists was fairly innocent, however as time wore on la Fargue began to forge signatures and monograms, leaving no doubt as to his true intentions. In order to maximise his profits, la Fargue would often produce counterproofs of these forgeries, which he would then work up in colour and sell on as original drawings. There is in fact a second counterproof of this example, a more highly worked-up sheet than the given example, although good images were impossible to locate. One drawing for the price of three!
Karel la Fargue’s “original copy” is at the Albertina, Vienna (inv. no: 10736)
Karel la Fargue’s counterproof is at the Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge (inv. no: 1932.204).
The whereabouts of the second counterproof are unknown; formerly coll. F. Adda, his sale Paris (Galliera), 29 November- 3 December 1965, lot 79, repr. (as A. Cuyp).
Henricus Josephus Antonissen’s engraving is known through various examples. This one is at the British Museum, London (inv. no: 1878,0511.1022)
Aelbert Cuyp’s original painting is in London, Mansion House, The Corporation of the City of London, The Harold Samuel Collection.
For a full breakdown of Karel la Fargue’s activities I would urge readers to consult Charles Dumas and Michiel C. Plomp’s catalogue in Oud Holland (C. Dumas and M. C. Plomp, Karel la Fargue (1738-1793) as a forger of seventeenth-century Dutch drawings, Oud Holland, 1998, Vol. 112, No. 1 (1998), pp. 1-76).
