Head of a bearded man looking down

Max Friedländer was the first to identify the author of this touching drawing of an aged man as Jacques de Gheyn II (Van Regteren Altena, op. cit.). Throughout his productive career, De Gheyn recorded his observations from everyday life in study sheets which often included a number of different sketches on the same page. Many of these were later cut to be sold individually and the present sheet might have been part of such a drawing too. Bearded elderly man such as that seen here frequently appear in De Gheyn’s drawn œuvre and other examples can be found in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (inv. RP-T-1898-A-3742; see ibid., no. 700, fig. 241), the Kupfersctichkabinett, Berlin (inv. 5697; see ibid., no. 741, fig. 403) and two studies of heads in a large sheet with various studies in the Albertina, Vienna (inv. 32742 recto; see ibid., no. 497, fig. 474). Somewhat more loosely drawn heads of bearded men that are perhaps closer to the execution of the present sheet can be found in a drawing in the Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin (inv. KdZ 4092; see ibid., no. 53, fig. 306), the École des Beaux-Arts, Paris (inv. 2642; see ibid., no. 220, fig. 311) and the Staatliche Graphische Sammlungen, Munich (inv. 1081; see ibid., no. 498, fig. 478).