De Maria van de annunciatie

Auteur: Albert J. Elen

Deze beschrijving is momenteel alleen beschikbaar in het Engels.

This is an intermediary design for the undated print of the same size and in the same direction, engraved and published by Crispijn de Passe the Elder.^[1] The drawing is not the final design for the print as it is not in mirror image and it differs in details, especially the position of the right hand and the figures decorating the lectern. It is undoubtedly the primo pensiero, a composition sketch, which Bloemaert worked out in greater detail into an improved design, now lost. For that purpose the composition was transferred to that other sheet of paper by dusting the reverse with charcoal or black chalk and then tracing the outlines.^[2] Bloemaert then made changes, turning the Virgin’s right hand to touch her bosom, adding a cloth beneath the opened book on the lectern, and reshaping the indistinct full-length human figures (possibly satyrs) supporting the prie-dieu (reading-desk) into volutes with breasted winged torso figures He also worked out details like the chair, the draperies and the book clasps.

Until the 1922 sale[3] this drawing was kept together with a drawing of the archangel Gabriel kneeling on a cloud and holding a lily, now in Granville, Ohio[4], which is a design for the counterpart print engraved on a separate copper plate, likewise in the same direction, by Willem de Passe.[5] The representation of the Annunciation in separate scenes is remarkable. A division like this is unusual at that time and reminds us of side panels of a polyptych.[6] An explication may be that the two prints are part of a series of individual biblical figures. Two prints representing David and Simeon, engraved after designs by Bloemaert by Willem and Crispijn de Passe and issued by the latter, just like the prints of Gabriel and the Virgin, are of almost equal dimensions and have similar neo-Latin texts in the same calligraphic hand, with the same French royal privilege inscribed.[7] The series may have included designs by other artists, including Crispijn de Passe.

The figures of the Virgin and the Archangel were probably inspired by Goltzius’s panel painting now in Moscow, which is dated 1609.^[8] The watermark in the Rotterdam sheet, unnoticed so far, representing the personal coat of arms of Prince Maurits of Orange-Nassau (died 1625), fits the suggested date for the print, and consequently the date for the preliminary drawing, given by Roetlisberger, c. 1615-1618.^[9] The same type of watermark is found in Bloemaert’s Rotterdam drawing (inv. no. MB 1961/T 41) and in his drawing King David Playing the Harp in Paris, which can be dated around 1620-1625.^[10]