Nov 03, 2021 - Sale 2586

Sale 2586 - Lot 642

Price Realized: $ 1,062
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 1,500
FRENCH SCHOOL, EARLY 17TH CENTURY
Balthasar.

Red and black chalk on cream laid paper. 280x140mm; 11x5 1/2 inches. House with a cross and snake watermark.

Provenance: Private collection, New York.

The prototype for this drawing may be the etching of the same subject by Jacques Bellange (1575-1616), see Griffiths/Hartley 29a, which was also copied in a widely circulated etching by Matthäus Merian (1593-1650), and imitated in various drawings by Abraham Bosse, Jacques Callot and Wenzel Hollar.

Balthasar was one of the Three Magi and is often represented in late Middle Ages and Renaissance scenes as a black male.