(1497-1543)
Lady in a feathered beret, inscribed and dated "H. H. 1520", pen and brown ink, brown, grey and black wash, on laid paper, fixed to another laid paper, 26,5 x 17,5 cm, remains of glue on an old mount on the reverse, unmounted, unframed, (Sch)

Provenance:
Private collection, Austria.

The present study of a lady with a feathered beret can be compared with two other versions of the same lady in the Hamburger Kunsthalle (Inv. No. 52002) and in the Kunstmuseum Basel (Inv. 1662.143). They go back to a lost drawing by Hans Holbein the Younger, which the artist created around 1523 together with other costume studies.
The copy in Hamburg is attributed on the reverse to Niklaus Manuel Deutsch (1528-1588), but there is no connection with drawings by the Swiss artist. For the copy of the lady in Basel, wearing additionally a necklace with large rings, the Basel painter Hans Hug Kluber (1535/36-1578) has been suggested as the author. The lost original by Holbein or the copy in Basel was engraved by Christian von Mechel (1737-1817) and published in his "Recueil de XII costumes Suisses Civils et Militaires, Hommes et Femmes, du seizième siècle" in Basel in 1790 as plate 3 with the caption "Costume Suise du 16me Siècle d'après le Dessin original du célèbre Jean Holbein quise trouve á la Bibliothèque publique de Basle". However, Mechel's aquatints can be ruled out as models, as they differ in some details such as the decoration and the background from the two drawings in Hamburg and Basel as well as from the present sheet. The copies were presumably made directly after Holbein's study, which may also be indicated by the monogram and the date on our drawing "H. H. 1520". In regard of the attribution of the present study, stylistically and technically comparable copies after old masters by Jan de Bisschop (1628-1671) are known, such as the "Portrait of a scholar" (1635) after Quentin Massys in the graphic collection of the Städel Museum Frankfurt (inv. no. 17174). It is possible that the present drawing was executed in the artist's immediate surrounding or by a follower towards the end of the 17th century in the Netherlands.