Signed and dated at the lower left, "Heemskerck inventor 1565" (the data some distance from the name); numbered, to the left of the date, possibly also by the artist, "4". On verso, in an old (seventeenth century?) Dutch script, in black chalk, "no 25/3-/ van heemskerck".
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. 44, no. 73, repr.
100 Master drawings from the Morgan Library & Museum. München : Hirmer, 2008, no. 40, repr. [Achim Riether]
Watermark: none.
This is the fourth of Heemskerck's designs for the series the "Four Temperaments" ("Quatuor praedominantes complexiones"), engraved in reverse by Herman Muller in 1566 (Hollstein, VIII, p. 246, no. 438-41). The drawing for the second engraving, the "Choleric Temperament" is located in the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven. The locations of the other two drawings are unknown.
Stirling Maxwell, William, Sir, 1818-1878, former owner.
Stirling, William, Lt. Col., former owner.