Abigail

Prints and Drawings

c. 1560

Maarten van Heemskerck
Netherlandish, 1498-1574

Maarten van Heemskerck, a prolific draftsman and etcher and the leading proponent of the Mannerist School in Haarlem, spent a decisive period in Rome from 1532 to 1536. This drawing shows the influence of Michelangelo’s heroic forms. Pricked for transfer to a metal plate, it is one of six designs he made for an engraved series of Good Women of the Old Testament.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Prints and Drawings

Artist: Maerten van Heemskerck
Title: Abigail
Place: Netherlands (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1555–1565
Medium: Pen and brown ink on ivory laid paper, incised with stylus for transfer
Inscriptions: Signed recto, lower left, in pen and ink: "Maerten van/ Heemskerck/inventor"; inscribed, lower right, in pen and brown ink: "Abÿgael" (both now faint but legible in ultraviolet light); inscribed verso, center, in graphite: "41911"; lower right, in graphite: "3" (upside down)
Dimensions: 19.7 × 25.2 cm (7 13/16 × 9 15/16 in.)
Credit Line: Simeon B. Williams Fund
Reference Number: 1961.33
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/12868/manifest.json

Egbert Haverkamp-Begemann, Mary Tavener Holmes, Fritz Koreny, Donald Posner, Duncan Robinson, The Robert Lehman Collection VII: Fifteenth to Eighteenth-Century European Drawings: Central Europe, The Netherlands, France, England (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1999), see no. 29 (ill p. 134.)
The New Hollstein Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts 1450–1700, Philips Galle, 4 vols., Compiled by Manfred Sellink and Marjolein Leesberg, ed. Manfred Sellink (Rotterdam: Sound and Vision Publishers, 2001 in cooperation with the Rijksprentenkabinet, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam), vol. 1, no. 133, p. 188.

Art Institute of Chicago, Great Drawings from The Art Institute of Chicago: The Harold Joachim Years 1958–1983, July 24–Sept. 30, 1985, pp. 72–73, cat. 27 (ill.); also the St. Louis Art Museum, Mar. 10–May 16, 1986.
Milwaukee Art Museum, Old Master Drawings from Area Collections, 1997, pp. 12 and 27, cat. 13 (ill.).
The Art Institute of Chicago, “Rubens, Rembrandt, and Drawing in the Golden Age”, September 28, 2019 - January 5, 2020, pp. 187, 188-89 (ill.), 190-91, 198, 301, cat. 67, cat. by Victoria Sancho Lobis, et. al.

John McGowan (died 1803), Edinburgh; possibly sold, Jan. 26–Feb. 4, 1804. Henry Reveley (1737–1798), North Wales, England; possibly sold, Christie’s, London May 11–12, 1852. Hamilton, London [according to inscription by Roupell]. Robert Prioleau Roupell (1798–1886), London [stamp (Lugt 2234), verso upper left in black]; sold, Christie’s, London, July 12–14, 1887, lot 999. Private collector; sold, Karl & Faber, Munich, Nov. 16–17, 1959, lot 110. Sold by Richard Zinser, New York, to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1961.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.