Studies after the Antique
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Jan de Bisschop was a lawyer by profession. In the mid-1650s he visited Italy where he made many studies of Roman antiquities like this example, which appears to represent a series of female busts. Northern artists, whose traditions were more realist than in Italy, were still much attracted by the ancient world and felt that a visit to Italy, especially Rome, was part of their artistic education. Here, the application of the dark wash gives an effect of sparkling light and enlivens these studies.
With Nathan Chaikin, New York, by October 20, 1961;
Purchased from Chaikin by Milton McGreevy (1903-1980), Shawnee Mission, KS, October 20, 1961-1966 [1];
His gift to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1966.
NOTES:
[1] Nathan Chaikin invoice, October 20, 1961, NAMA Archives, MS007 Milton McGreevy Records.
Shelley Perlove and George Keyes, Seventeenth-Century European Drawings in Midwestern Collections: The Age of Bernini, Rembrandt, and Poussin (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2015).
