A Seated Bishop Saint

Well into the 16th century most draftsmanship in the Netherlands concerned the recording of motifs in other media or occasionally the elaboration of autono-mous works. Unlike the drawings produced by the system of induction and creation that emerged in 15th-century Florence, Netherlandish drawings are largely anonymous and relatively few. This is a characteristic work, generic enough as a workshop or student’s record of a painted motif that neither the hand nor precise school is evident. Such figures attending the Virgin and Child, usually with other saints and donors, are, however, frequent in paintings by the followers of Rogier van der Weyden and Hugo van der Goes. Compared with the graphic work of their circles, the more generalized rendering and implication of coherent light assume the work of Gerard David and point toward a later date, of around 1500.