Kneeling Woman with a Torch

Author: Esmé van der Krieke

Franz Koenigs acquired this black chalk drawing of a kneeling woman with a torch in her left hand as a sheet by Titian (1480/1490-1576). Tietze and Tietze-Conrat subsequently linked this work to a partially lost fresco by Titian on the facade of the Fondaco dei Tedeschi in Venice,^[1] which we now know chiefly from reproductions in prints.^[2] In this fresco the figure depicted – Justitia, or Judith – does indeed adopt the same position: seated, with one hand beside her body and the other raised aloft. The form of the mantle is also similar. Nevertheless, Tietze and Tietze-Conrat described the style of our drawing as very advanced, as a result of which they believed that it was not made by Titian himself but by an anonymous artist at a later date.^[3]

Aikema and Meijer, however, concluded that the sheet was made at the very beginning of the sixteenth century, a date that roughly corresponds to the years around 1509 when Titian’s fresco was undertaken. According to these scholars, the rough character of our drawing was moreover in line with the drawings that Titian made in the first two decades of that century. On this basis, they suggested an anonymous maker who was either inspired by the Fondaco decorations, or directly involved in their creation.^[4]

It is indeed highly unlikely that our drawing was made by Titian himself. His figures are put down on paper with sharper outlines and show more finesse than we see in our drawing, which is freer in nature and has less of an eye for detail. Nevertheless, given the said iconographic likeness and the use of the blue paper that is typical of Venetian artists, it is plausible that the maker was in Titian’s circle. In the absence of a convincing attribution, for the time being we join Aikema and Meijer in suggesting an anonymous Venetian maker who made the sheet at the beginning of the sixteenth century.