ABRAHAM BLOEMAERT (1564-1651)

PROMETHEUS BOUND
Black chalk with brown wash 
5.7 x 9.2 cm | 2 1/4 x 3 3/5 in
 
PROVENANCE:
Teodor Wyzewa (L.2471);
His sale, Paris, Drouot, 21-22.02.1919, lot 11;
Anonymous sale, Christie's, 18.04.2000, lot 129 (one of a pair);
With Kate de Rothschild, London (by 2001);
Private collection, U.K.
 
LITERATURE:
Jan Van Bolten, Abraham Bloemaert: The Drawings, Leiden (2007), vol. I, p.175, no. 489 & repr. vol II, fig.489
 
EXHIBITED:
London, Kate de Rothschild, July 2001, cat. no. 4 (repr.)
 
 
 
 
Bloemaert drew this grisly subject on at least seven [1] occasions, with further examples found in the Albertina, Vienna (inv. no. 8134), another sold at Sotheby’s, London, 03.07.2013, lot 8 (sold for £18,750), and a third example, closely comparable to the present sheet, is recorded by the RKD in a private collection (sold at Christie’s, Amsterdam, 30 November 1987). 
 
 
Abraham Bloemaert was born in Gorinchem, the son of an architect, and began his training as an artist in Utrecht, studying under Gerrit Splinter (a pupil of Frans Floris) and Joos de Beer. Bloemaert then moved to study in Paris - a comparatively unusual choice for a Netherlandish artist at the time - at the age of fifteen, for three years, during which time he also worked at the School of Fontainebleau, meeting his fellow countryman Hieronymus Francken I there and training under him. He spent the next spent two years in Amsterdam, where his father had been appointed city architect, but returned to Utrecht upon the latter’s death, where he would remain for the rest of his exceptionally long career. Upon his return, the young artist established his reputation swiftly, setting up a workshop in 1594 and almost immediately becoming Master of the Guild of Saddlemakers, whose numbers had included artists for more than two centuries by then, in the absence of a Guild of St Luke. Together with Joachim Wtewael and Paulus Moreelse, Bloemaert established exactly that, and was made its deken (Dean) in 1618.
 
Together with Wtewael and Cornelis van Haarlem, Bloemaert was one of the last major exponents of the Northern Mannerist tradition. He produced important altarpieces for the Catholic minority in Utrecht, including those in Sint Janskerk in ’s-Hertogenbosch and for the Jesuit church in Brussels. He also established a drawing guild in the city, shortly after founding the Guild of St Luke, and exerted considerable influence over numerous artists who trained under him, including Jan Both, Cornelis van Poelenburgh, Gerrit van Honthorst, Hendrik Terbrugghen, Jan Baptist Weenix and Herman Saftleven. 
 
Bloemaert was a gifted and prolific draughtsman, whose skill in this area was commented on by his biographer Karel van Mander: ‘(Bloemaert) has a clever way of drawing with a pen, and, by adding small amounts of watercolour, he produces unusual effects.’ The historian could almost have been looking at our drawing when he wrote this. He produced numerous studies for paintings and engravings - some six hundred prints after his designs are known - as well as a small number of landscape drawings and many sheets of anatomical and head studies. Some of the latter were reproduced as engravings by his son Frederik and published in the 1650s as the ‘Konstryk Tekenboek’, an early model-book and manual for young artists. This publication proved very popular and was reprinted several times, serving to perpetuate Bloemaert’s influence on later generations of artists (even down to Francois Boucher, who published a series of etchings after the Utrecht artist’s figure studies).