Inscribed on verso at upper center in graphite: "Peter Canditi"; numbered at lower left, 088227; in upper left corner, in another hand, in blue ink, 6.
The former attribution to Peter Candid, under which the drawing was acquired, is no longer accepted. Heinrich Geissler, among others, suggested the drawing may be South German, possibly associated with the circle of Hans Rottenhammer, toward the end of the Rottenhammer’s career.1 In 1985, Hinrich Sieveking tentatively suggested Johann Matthias Kager (unpublished opinion recorded in curatorial file). More recently, Timothy Clifford proposed that the drawing is instead Italian in origin, more specifically, from the school of Cremona (unpublished opinion recorded in curatorial file, 2008). Rhoda-Eitel Porter believed that, on balance, a late sixteenth-century German artist such as Rottenhammer seems the most likely candidate.
Footnotes:
- Stampfle 1991, 114, no. 252.
Selected references: Fellows Report 1981, 182, 222 (as Pieter de Witte, called Peter Candid); Stampfle 1991, 114, no. 252, (as formerly attributed to Pieter de Witte, called Candido).
Ryskamp, Charles, ed. Nineteenth Report to the Fellows of the Pierpont Morgan Library, 1978-1980. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1981, p. 222.
Stampfle, Felice, with the assistance of Ruth S. Kraemer and Jane Shoaf Turner. Netherlandish Drawings of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries and Flemish Drawings of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries in the Pierpont Morgan Library. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1991, p. 114, no. 252, repr.
Watermark: fleur-de-lis in a circle, possibly surmounted by a crown (cf. Briquet 7113).
Possible attribution includes Pieter de Witte, called Peter Candid (ca. 1548-1628); Hans Rottenhammer (ca. 1564-1625); Johann Matthias Kager (1575-1634).
Formerly attributed to Pieter de Witte, called Peter Candid (under which name acquired). Bruges ca. 1548-1628 Munich
Witte, Pieter de, approximately 1548-1628, Formerly attributed to.
Rottenhammer, Hans, 1564-1625, Possible attribution.
Kager, Johann Matthias, 1575?-1634, Possible attribution.
Markus, Frits, donor.