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DOI Artikel:Monkiewicz, Maciej: A drawing of Elsheimer in the collection of the National Museum in Warsaw
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18904#0110
2. Adam Elsheimer, Jupiter and Mercury- in the House of Philemon and Baucis, oil on copper,
Dreśden, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen (Photo courtesy of Staatliche Kunstsammlungen)
predisposition to technicpies more related to painting. Though these works are organically
linked with his pen studies, they have nothing of their awkwardness but, on the contrary, are
reminiscent of his paintings due to the artist's exceeding sensitivity to effects of light and va'ue,
his prccise handling of the brush, the perfectly balanced proportions of figures between one
another and in relation to the entire composition, as well as emotional restraint. AU these qua-
lities also characterise the Warsaw drawing (Fig. 1), executed in the same techniąue, in contrast
to the above-discussed set of Goudfs washed pen drawings, in which the use of masking white
does not go beyond retouching12.
On closer analysis, similarities are even more striking. In our drawing, Baucis' face, presented
somewhat from above, is inscribed within a pattern almost identical with that inscribing the
maid-servant's face in the scenę showing The Bath of Bathsheba in Vienna (Fig. 9): the forehead
is delimited from below by the semi-circle of the brows from which the nosc grows obliquely,
with deep eye-sockets at the sides. Mercury's face is shaped in the same way as Tobias's in
the West Berlin gouache (Fig. 8). As in the gouache, the dark eye-sockets, marked nose, pro-
minent mouth and round chin stand out against the pale round shape; while the fine folds
of the fabric of the right leg of Philemon's trousers correspond to the charactcristic ,,dry" model-
ling of the cloak on Tobias's left leg. Comprehensive modelling of the face, reminiscent of that
12. Mohle (1966, p. 73) considers this method of using white as charactcristic of Goudt, not Elsheimer.
96
Dreśden, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen (Photo courtesy of Staatliche Kunstsammlungen)
predisposition to technicpies more related to painting. Though these works are organically
linked with his pen studies, they have nothing of their awkwardness but, on the contrary, are
reminiscent of his paintings due to the artist's exceeding sensitivity to effects of light and va'ue,
his prccise handling of the brush, the perfectly balanced proportions of figures between one
another and in relation to the entire composition, as well as emotional restraint. AU these qua-
lities also characterise the Warsaw drawing (Fig. 1), executed in the same techniąue, in contrast
to the above-discussed set of Goudfs washed pen drawings, in which the use of masking white
does not go beyond retouching12.
On closer analysis, similarities are even more striking. In our drawing, Baucis' face, presented
somewhat from above, is inscribed within a pattern almost identical with that inscribing the
maid-servant's face in the scenę showing The Bath of Bathsheba in Vienna (Fig. 9): the forehead
is delimited from below by the semi-circle of the brows from which the nosc grows obliquely,
with deep eye-sockets at the sides. Mercury's face is shaped in the same way as Tobias's in
the West Berlin gouache (Fig. 8). As in the gouache, the dark eye-sockets, marked nose, pro-
minent mouth and round chin stand out against the pale round shape; while the fine folds
of the fabric of the right leg of Philemon's trousers correspond to the charactcristic ,,dry" model-
ling of the cloak on Tobias's left leg. Comprehensive modelling of the face, reminiscent of that
12. Mohle (1966, p. 73) considers this method of using white as charactcristic of Goudt, not Elsheimer.
96