Attributed to THEODORE VAN THULDEN

Bois -le- Luc 1606 — 1669 Bois-le-Luc

Prisoners and Trophies after a Frieze by Polidoro

black chalk underdrawing, pen & brown ink, brush & light brown wash. 8 1/8 x 17 1/4". inscribed l/l in an old hand Polidore. laid down and matted with French blue paper probably in the 18th century.

provenance:
a late 17th or early 18th c. French collection.

The present design was most likely copied from an engraving after Polidoro's celebrated frieze above the main entrance of Palazzo Ricci in Rome. That the drawing is executed in a technique similar to an engraving and that the image is in reverse of the frescoed facade strongly suggest that the source was a print, not the frieze itself. Also, van Thulden was not known to have travelled to Italy. He did go to Paris and Fontainebleau in 1632 and at Fontainebleau he drew copies after Primaticcio, 46 leaves of which are preserved in an album at the Courthauld Institute;1 others are preserved at the Royal Library in Brussels.2 These drawings are however, executed largely with brush & wash, not in the engravers' technique of the present drawing, and that difference is the reason for the reservation in the attribution.3

Van Thulden not only studied with Rubens in 1626 but collaborated with the great master in Luxembourg decades later. He often painted the figures in the paintings of Joos de Momper, Jan Wildens and Frans Snyders and produced a large number of etchings after Rubens, Primaticcio and his own drawings. Van Thulden's 58 etchings of Ulysses after his drawings of them mentioned above and which in turn are after the lost frescoes of Primaticcio and Niccolo del Abate at Fontainebleau are one of several series of prints after cycles of paintings. In 1632-1634, he made another set after his own paintings in the choir of the church of Mathurins in Paris. There do not appear to be any prints by van Thulden after Polidoro. However, other specialists who have seen this drawing concur that it is most likely by him.4
1

Images are viewable on the web-site www.ArtandArchitecture.org.UK.

2

As related to me by Victoria.........in an e-mail of Dec 27th, 2007.

3

Same e-mail from the very helpful Victoria Sanchez Lobis.

4

while on view in NY during Master Drawings Week 2008.