black chalk or graphite (?), point of the brush and brown ink, pen and brown ink framing lines
8.7 x 15 cm
Provenance:
Alfred Normand (1910-1993), Paris (L. 153c).

Bartholomeus Breenbergh is first recorded in Rome in 1619, when he served as a witness to the
drafting of a will. [1] After arriving in the eternal city, the artist established himself as a successful painter
and he was well-connected with other Dutch and Flemish artists working there. Like many of his
fellow Dutch and Flemish artists, Breenbergh was a member of the Benthveughels and received
the nickname ‘Bartolomeo van deventer alias Het Fret’ (Bartholomeus from Deventer, known as the
ferret). The artist depicted Rome and its ancient monuments in a large number of drawings and
paintings.

The present drawing depicts the ruins of the baths of Diocletian, Rome. The sheet is very close in style,
execution and size to a drawing depicting the Piazza del Popolo, Rome, which was previously in the
I.Q. van Regteren Altena collection [2] and it seems plausible that both drawings were executed in
close succession. Both drawings are executed in a delicate use of wash applied over a finely executed
sketch in graphite. Interestingly, both drawings were also used for paintings. The composition shown
in the present drawing is close to a picture that is now in the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, [3]
which is dated to circa 1625 which is close to the dating of circa 1626 that Roethlisberger suggested for the drawing previously in the Van Regteren Altena collection. The ruins of the baths are closely comparable in both the picture and the drawing, but Breenbergh changed the staffage in the picture and added a farmer with his cattle in the foreground. Furthermore, he did not include the circular monument, which he did represent in his drawing, in his painting.

1 P. Schatborn, Tekenen van Warmte. 17de-eeuwse Nederlandse tekenaars in Italië, Zwolle, 2001, p. 66.
2 M. Roethlisberger, Bartolomäus Breenbergh, Handzeichnungen, Berlin, 1969, p. 34, no. 76, ill; sold at Christie’s,
Amsterdam, The I.Q. van Regteren Altena collection part IV, Amsterdam, 13 May 2015, lot 271.
3 inv. NGI.700