Study of Arms and a Hand

Artist Charles de La Fosse (French, 1636 - 1716)

Formerly attributed to Charles Antoine Coypel (French, 1694 - 1752)

Date1687-1688

MediumRed, black, and white chalk on paper

DimensionsOverall: 9 1/4 × 7 1/8 inches (23.5 × 18.11 cm)
Framed: 21 × 17 × 1 1/4 inches (53.34 × 43.18 × 3.18 cm)

Credit LinePurchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust

Object number32-193/11

On View

Not on view

Collections

European Art

Terms

Exhibition History

Exhibition, Spiva Art Center, Joplin, MO, October 1961, no cat.

Dürer to Matisse: Master Drawings from the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, The Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, OK, June 23-August 18, 1996; The Cummer Museum and Gardens, Jacksonville, FL, September 20-November 29, 1996; The Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, December 21, 1996-March 2, 1997, no. 31,

as Study of Arms and a Hand.

Dürer to Matisse: Master Drawings from the Permanent Collection, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, July 12-September 6, 1998, no cat., as Study of Arms and a Hand.

The Human Body, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, November 30, 2010–June 5, 2011; July 18, 2018–January 13, 2019, no cat., as Study of Arms and a Hand.

Gallery Label

This study relates to a painting by La Fosse of Diana and her Nymphs, which is known in several versions. The artist here works out the gestures of the hands and the portions of the arms of the nymphs surrounding the goddess. These studies were probably made from life and the vigerous strokes of the chalk creates a feeling of movement and living flesh.

Provenance

Pierre Geismar (1887–1949), Paris, by 1928 [1];

His sale, Dessins et aquarelles des maîtres français et étrangers du XVe au XIXe siècle composant la collection de Pierre Geismar, lot 55, November 15, 1928;

With Richard Owen, Paris, by September 26–December 1, 1932 [2];

Purchased from Owen, through Harold Woodbury Parsons, by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1932.

NOTES:

[1] See collector’s mark at lower left in black ink. See Frits Lugt, Les Marques de Collection de Dessins et d’Estampes: Supplément (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1956), 2078b, http://www.marquesdecollections.fr/detail.cfm/marque/8887/total/1#

[2] See letter from Harold Woodbury Parsons, art advisor to NAMA, to J. C. Nichols, NAMA Trustee, September 26, 1932.

Published References

Catalogue des dessins et aquarelles des maîtres français et étrangers du XVe au XIXe siècle composant la collection de Pierre Geismar (Paris: Hôtel Drouot, November 15, 1928).

Pierre Rosenberg, French Master Drawings of the 17^th and 18^th Centuries in North American Collections, exh. cat. (Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario, 1972), 169.

Patricia J. Fidler, “A Drawing by Charles de la Fosse Identified,” Source: Notes in the History of Art 14, no. 4 (Summer 1995): 34-38, (repro.), as Study of Arms and Hands.

Roger Ward, Dürer to Matisse: Master Drawings from the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, exh. cat. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1996), 13, 113-14, (repro.), as Study of Arms and a Hand.

“L.2078b, Geismar, Pierre,” in Frits Lugt, Les Marques de collections de dessins et d’estampes, online edition by the Fondation Custodia, (December 2018), http://www.marquesdecollections.fr/detail.cfm/marque/8887, as Étude de bras et de main.

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