Cherub Holding a Stick

Author: Albert Elen

This hitherto unpublished Raphaelesque drawing has been grouped among the anonymous sheets and dated ‘Netherlandish, mid-sixteenth century’ ever since it was acquired by Koenigs in 1928.^[1] However, it is very closely related in style to the graphic work of the Bolognese artist Bartolomeo Passerotti, and in particular to two sheets with similar studies of cherubs: a double-sided sheet in Chicago,^[2] and another in an unknown collection.^[3] Those cherubs were drawn with a reed pen, with Passerotti’s characteristic cross-hatching to render the volumes of the body. However, since the cross-hatching is less systematic in this drawing one should rather think of a pupil. Many of Passerotti’s drawings display his great interest in human anatomy, as well as that of birds, as is the case in two drawings now in Haarlem.^[4] The way in which the wings are drawn with a few rapid pen strokes is also a feature of the Rotterdam sheet. Placing it in close proximity to Passerotti is supported by the provenance of the paper, which has an Italian type of watermark that is documented in Ferrara in 1553.^[5] The Haarlem sheets are dated 1575-90, so placing the Rotterdam drawing in the 1580s is only logical.