Pen and brown ink, heightened with grey and blue wash, framing lines in black ink, on laid paper, 142 x 240 mm. Unsigned (some sl. creases)
The temple of Minerva on the Forum of Nerva, has highly admired by Netherlandish artists visiting the Eternal City during the second half of 16th century. Maarten Van Heemskerck captured the monument in 1532, during his Roman Sojourn from a similar viewpoint (Heemskerck-Album II, fol. 37r, Kupferstichkabinett Berlin). The present sheet shows an even greater affinity to the etching by Hieronymus Cock of the antique site, in his first series of Antique ruins, published in 1551 (Hollstein 43). Cock' print may have provided the source for the present drawing. A slightly linear handling of the lines, suggests that the drawing was made in the studio, rather than in situ. Yet some differences should be noted: the addition of the campanile of the Chiesa dei Santi Quirico e Giulitta, the enhanced verticality of the architecture, and the flattening of the perspectival depth in the left section of the temple. A sheet by Cornelis Cort, now in the collection of Rijksmuseum print room (RP-T-1922-7), again drawn from the same viewpoint, might also bare some relationship to the present sheet
