Standing Soldier Leaning on a Shield

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Specifications

Title	Standing Soldier Leaning on a Shield
Material and technique	Pen and brown ink
Object type	Drawing > Two-dimensional object > Art object
Location	This object is in storage

Dimensions	Height 262 mm Width 109 mm
Artists	Follower of: Andrea Mantegna
Accession number	I 22 (PK)
Credits	Loan Stichting Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen (former Koenigs collection), 1940
Department	Drawings & Prints
Acquisition date	1940
Creation date	in circa 1450-1850
Watermark	impossible to determine, seems to be laid paper (if so, a forgery?)
Inscriptions	'25' (verso, centre, pencil), '139' (verso, centre, pen and brown ink), '71' (verso, below right, pencil), '488 1' (verso, below right, purple chalk)
Collector	Collector / Franz Koenigs
Mark	W. Pitcairn Knowles (L.2643), F.W. Koenigs (L.1023a)
Provenance	Art dealer Artaria & Cie., Vienna ; their sale, Vienna (Miethke) 12.01.1886, lot 297 (Andrea Mantegna, Fl 250 to [...]); William Pitcairn Knowles (1820-1894, L.2643)**, Rotterdam/Wiesbaden; Count Grégoire Stroganoff (1829-1910, L.550 deest), Rome; his sale, Rome (Jandolo, Tavazzi) 18-23.04.1910, lot #; Artdealer Richard Ederheimer, New York (1913); Franz W. Koenigs (1881-1941, L.1023a), Haarlem, acquired in 1926 (school of Andrea Mantegna, corrected to Andrea Mantegna); D.G. van Beuningen (1877-1955), Rotterdam, acquired with the Koenigs Collection in 1940 and donated to Stichting Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen
Exhibitions	New York 1913, no. 2.; Amsterdam 1934, no. 584
Research	Show research Italian Drawings 1400-1600
Literature	Miethke 1885, p. 69, ill.; Kristeller 1902, p. 484 (attrib. Mantegna/Giovanni Bellini, 'schwach'); New York 1913, no. 2, ill.; Amsterdam 1934, no. 584 (Mantegna)
Material	Brown ink > Ink > Artist's material > Material > Material and technique Pen > Artist's material > Material > Material and technique
Object	Drawing > Two-dimensional object > Art object
Geographical origin	Italy > Southern Europe > Europe

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Entry catalogue Italian Drawings 1400-1600

Author: Rosie Razzall

This pen-and-ink drawing depicts a Roman soldier standing in contrapposto, his right arm resting on his shield. Earlier scholars’ opinions about the quality of the sheet differed widely, with some seeing it as a fine pen drawing by Mantegna or Jacopo de’ Barbari (1460/1470-1516)^[1]and others a weak drawing in the style of Giovanni Bellini (c. 1430-1516).^[2]However, the drawing has received no scholarly attention since the 1930s, and its date is uncertain.

The handling of pen and ink, with layers of diagonal hatching around the contours of the figure, is imitative of Mantegna’s graphic style, as seen for example in an undisputed sheet in London.^[3]The figure type also recalls the soldiers in Mantegna’s fresco The Judgement of St James in Cappella Ovetari, Chiesa degli Eremitani, Padua. The drawing may be by a pupil or follower of Mantegna, as seen in another sheet in London.^[4] However, it is difficult to determine the presence of chain lines in the paper, suggesting that it may even be laid paper of a much later date. This might imply that the drawing is a nineteenth-century imitation or forgery.