Drawing of the Month #14
Anthony Van Dyck (Antwerp 1599 – 1641 London)
A Wolf and Fox Hunt, c.1616–17
Black and some red chalk, brush and brown and black ink with brown and green watercolours, 247 × 360 mm, laid down, Chatsworth House, Derbyshire, accession number 982
Elania Pieragostini, Senior Curator of the Devonshire Collection at Chatsworth, Derbyshire, has kindly chosen our fourteenth drawing of the month.
This sheet was historically believed to be a preparatory drawing for the Wolf and Fox Hunt, a painting created by Sir Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) in 1616 and now at the Metropolitan Museum, New York. In his catalogue of the Northern European drawings in the Devonshire Collection at Chatsworth, Michael Jaffé described it as a ricordo, the Italian word for memory or memento. Jaffé correctly identified its unfinished and spontaneous quality as the work by a young Anthony van Dyck (1599-1641), then in Rubens’ workshop, recording a portion of the large painting (245.4 x 376.2 cm). However, this drawing is far from a mere copy: the right arm of the man on the right is absent, whereas in the painting he holds a sword. Other people, animals, details from the painting are also omitted, and Van Dyck arguably surpasses Rubens at capturing the fury of the battle, creating a visceral scene, enhanced by circular motion and a heightened sense of dynamism. The drawing is marked by a stark contrast between the right and left sides. The right is only lightly and quickly outlined, in black chalk, while the left side showcases Van Dyck's stronger, layered technique. Over the black chalk, he applied coloured washes and watercolours, lending the scene a warm, painterly quality, particularly noticeable in the musculature of the animals. Van Dyck also excels at conveying the distinct expressions of the figures: the man on the right appears worried, the figure in the background has a wild, almost enraged look, while the elegant knight on the left seems resolute and determined. The gentle, serene expressions of the two horses – drawn using different techniques but positioned almost on the same line – contrast sharply with the violent, angry expressions of the other animals, which even include droplets of blood in the foreground. This sheet is one of approximately 225 in the Devonshire Collection that bear the now-familiar italic ‘F’, the collector’s mark of Anthony Nicholaes Flinck (1646-1722), a wealthy merchant from Rotterdam, amateur etcher and the son of one of Rembrandt’s pupils. Upon Flinck’s death in 1722, his extensive collection of Old Master drawings was acquired by William Cavendish, the 2nd Duke of Devonshire (1672-1729), who was congratulated in this endeavour by the renowned French collector Pierre Crozat (1665-1740): “I take the liberty of congratulating you on the drawings of the late Mr Flinck of Rotterdam that you have just acquired. To my taste it is the most beautiful collection and best chosen that I have ever seen. It will amply enrich your own and make you the richest proprietor in Europe. All the drawings are excellent, specially selected, and altogether worthy to enter your collection, and I know that that already displays an equal discrimination”. This letter serves as a testament to the exceptional quality of the Duke’s collection.
This drawing is part of a group of about fifty Flemish, Dutch, Early Netherlandish and German drawings and watercolours from Chatsworth that will be on display at the National Galleries of Scotland from the 9th November until the of 23rd February 2025 as part of a major collaboration between the two institutions.
