Isaac Oliver

General James Dormer (1679-1741), Rousham House, Rousham by c.1720,

thence by descent to Thomas Cottrell-Dormer (1894-1990), Rousham House, Rousham,

his sale, London, Sotheby’s, 24 November 1977, lot 34;

sale, London, Sotheby’s, 4 July 2007, lot 10,

Herbert Kasper (1926-2020), New York,

his sale, New York, Christie's, 14 October 2021, lot 8

The Burlington Magazine, November 1977, p. lxiii [advertisement];

J. Finsten, Isaac Oliver: Art at the Courts of Elizabeth I and James I, Ph.D thesis, Harvard University 1979 [pub. New York and London 1981], Vol. I, p. 155, Vol. II, pp. 234-235, no. 194, fig. 170 (where dated c.1605-1610)

New York, The Morgan Library & Museum, Mannerism and Modernism: The Kasper Collection of Drawings and Photographs, 2011, no. 43 (entry by J. Pokoik), with a detail reproduced as a frontispiece

The present sheet can likely be dated to the first decade of the 17^th century, following Oliver’s visit to Italy in 1596, when the influence of the artistic models he would have seen and studied there was at its height. This drawing has been described by the scholar Jill Finsten as ‘one of Oliver’s suavest, most sophisticated maniera works…doubtless dating from the latter half of the first decade.’¹ It has further been suggested that Oliver might also have been inspired by certain Dutch and Flemish mannerist models – typified by an engraving by Hendrick Goltzius of The Holy Family, after Bartholomeus Spranger, published in 1585² - as well as the example of the artists of the 16th century French School of Fontainebleau, such as Francesco Primaticcio and Ambroise Dubois. As Finsten has noted of the present sheet, ‘of a sophistication so rarefied as to verge on decadence, the Madonna and Child are represented “all’antica” as Venus and Amor. The classicistic apparatus may well derive from Goltzius/Spranger…but the cool eroticism and delicate, almost feminized softness of handling are unquestionably French.’³ Among stylistically comparable drawings by Oliver of the same date is a signed black chalk study of Antiope in the British Museum.⁴

The first recorded owner of this drawing was General James Dormer (1679-1741), a British military officer who served as ambassador to Portugal between 1725 and 1728. As he was unmarried, at his death his estates passed to his cousin, the scholar and antiquary Sir Clement Cottrell-Dormer (1686-1758). This drawing by Isaac Oliver thence passed by descent within the Cottrell-Dormer family for several generations, to the magistrate Thomas Cottrell-Dormer JP (1894-1990).

^1.Finsten, op.cit., Vol.II, p.235, under no.194.

^2.Hollstein 318; Bartsch 274.

^3.Finsten, op.cit., Vol.I, p.155.

^4.Inv. 1869,0612.295; Edward Croft-Murray and Paul Hulton, Catalogue of British Drawings. Volume One: XVI and XVII Centuries, London, 1960, Vol. I, p. 22, no. 7, Vol. II, pl. 15; Finsten, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 218, no. 183, fig. 158 (where dated c.1600-1610)