Bulletin du Musée National de Varsovie (29.1988)

to the artist's early Roman years. it shows a variant of tlie scenę different from that occurring
in the painting: the sides of the composition are reversed so that now it is not Baucis but Phi-
lemon who approaches Jupiter and Mercury seated by the table, and we can only surmise that
the wife's figurę was represented on the left where a portion of the drawing has been cut off.
Ali other drawings on the subject formerly ascribed to Elsheimer were later attributed to Goudt
who imitated Elsheiraer's manner, most of the re-attribution taking place fifty years ago5.

Later in the 19th century, above three hundrcd drawings were attributed to Elsheimer.
The number was reduced by Mohle to sixty-eight certain and scventeen craestionable works,
and by Andrews to twenty-six (even though he attributed several new drawings to Elsheimer).
The fact should make us extremely cautious whenever a new attribution crops up. On the other
band, research carried out by J. G. van Gelder, Ingrid .Tost, Keith Andrews and others, has
given the first consistent and elear image of Elsheimer's oeuvre as a draughtsman6, creating
firmer grounds for new hypotheses. Elsheimer's monographists have not yet considered our
drawing which is mentioned only onee in the literaturę7. That its value w*as acknowledged
even in the past, is confirmed by the stamp (Lugt 1740) near the bottom left corner, testifying
to its being part of the eollection of Jean-Denis Lempereur (1701—1779), a famous collector
and connoisseur in European drawing. The artistic class of the drawing is even at first glance
superior to Goudt's similar works, and to the scenę — recently with Lodewijk Houthakker
in Amsterdam — prcviously ascribed to Elsheimer, among others by Móhle8. We do not find
in it slender figures with too long legs, characteristic in particular of Goudt's drawings at the
Institut Neerlandais in Paris and the Louvre (inv. no. 23006*). but also visible in t}y
the British Museum (Figs. 5, 6)9 nor the violent mann -
in the drawing on the same subject in the Frank/ort Alb e~rr) ^^\JJ^r
for the logie of the spatial lay-out and a sense of form.
in common with a set of figurative gouaches, the attril rr^ S^i^^^
stioned by specialists today. E w

The gouache representations of Tobias and the- A -
Recewing the Head of St. John (Chatsworth), The Balh —-
scenes of the histoiy of Ceres (in Hamburg and Zuricb ~ t-
period in Elsheimer's work and were executed in Roi — 5'
perhaps his utmost aohievements as a draughtsman. \E"o

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5. Weizsacker 1939, pp. 189—192; Mohle (1966, eat. n°. 43, pp. 113-=- *—■

and 1957, pp. 125, 178) oonsiders the attribution of a gouache on tlie

in London, recently with Lodewijk Houthakker in Amsterdam (our ~ J
was not confirmed by Andrews (1977, 1985). =- —

6. Van Gclder/Jost 1967—68; Andrews 1971; Andrews MD 1971; Boon = f \ ^
in Frankfurt in 1966 (catalogue Frankfort 1966/67) stimulated inti=~ ^
was tlie first opportuiiity to see together and compare most of the — co

7. Mrozińska 1980, p. 156.

8. Cf. note 5. =- Q\

9. The drawing in the Louvre: Demonts 1938, No. 528, table CXII (a! = ^ ^_ q)
Another drawing on the same subject in the Louvre, ascribed to Gt — /
Elsheimer's school); Weizsacker 1939, loc. cii., Fig. 3, Cf. Mohle =_

10. Weizsacker 1936, Fig. 118 (Table 101); Weizsacker 1939, pp. 189 -

Andrews 1977 and 1985, cat. nos. 47, 48, 49, 50, 51 (Andrews 1977,=-^ fgt
and 44). Andrews has recently ascribed to Elsheimer yet another g< —
-nudę seated woman, which, so he believes, might have been a study—
n°. 49 A, pp. 200 and 44). — " ^

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