(Antwerp 1599 – 1641 Blackfriars/London) attributed to Study of the head of a bearded man clothed in fur (study of the head of a shepherd), oil on canvas, 42 x 36 cm, framed, (Wo)

Prof Horst Vey considers the present painting to be associated with the “studies of unkempt-looking heads which Van Dyck often also painted in the second Antwerp period” and he points to the literature: Nora De Poorter, “Van Dyck. A Complete Catalogue of the Paintings”, passim. Prof Justus Müller Hofstede and Didier Bodart agree in their belief that the painting is an autograph work by Anthony van Dyck. Certificate: Prof Müller Hofstede, 31 January 1985: The painting “is in my view a work by Antony van Dyck. The type of head in this study is first evident in the work of Antony van Dyck around 1627–1628 in “The Mocking of Christ” in the figure of one of the two henchmen (see Dr Gustav Glück, “Klassiker der Kunst Van Dyck”, Stuttgart-Berlin 1931, ill. p. 215). Here we have the same head with straggily hair, sloping forehead, prominent nose and chin beard. A precedent for this type in the work of Van Dyck can be found in the physionogmy of the second beggar in “St. Martin sharing his cloak with a beggar” of around 1620 (Saventhem/Pfarrkirche; G. Glück, ibid., ill. p. 24). The present painting is the only extant study of a head dating from Antony van Dyck’s later, post-Italian phase.(...) The artist’s hand is apparent above all in the spirited, irregular brushstrokes and the spontaneous, uneven application of paint, which alternates between a rich, impasto handling of pigment and a dry, spare application. It is very probable that the present head was produced as a study for one of the shepherd figures in Van Dyck’s “Adoration of the Shepherds”, which was painted by the master as an altarpiece for the church of Onze-Lieve-Vrouwe in Dendermonde around 1631–1632.” Certificate: Didier Bodart, 22 February 1986 (from the French). Didier Bodart was able to examine the painting in the original. He considers it to be a “sensitive work of genius. This very swift, vibrant study of a man in profile has a great simplicity in the coloration, and marked highlighting on the neck, forehead and nose.” Bodart dates the study to the period when the artist was working in Rubens’s workshop. As a comparative work, Bodart cites, among other examples, the four heads in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich and works in the Louvre and the Hermitage in St. Petersburg. These are all studies from life as is the present painting. Provenance: Spanish private collection