ID: 700008127 Page link: http://vocab.getty.edu/page/cona/700008127	Record Type: Movable Work

A Young Man with a Fur Hat Holding a Staff (recto); Study of the Head of a Man with a White Collar (verso) (drawing (visual work); Jacob Adriaensz Backer (Dutch, 1608 - 1651) (Dutch Artist); late 1640s; J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Center (Los Angeles, Los A...; 2008.32)

Note: This impressive study of an elegant young man in costume is a superb example by the seventeenth-century Dutch painter and draftsman Jacob Backer. Most well-known for his academic female nude studies, drawings of males such as this are especially rare. Here, a young man, identified as a prince by the leading Rembrandt scholar Werner Sumowski, is elegantly draped in luxurious fabric and wears an elaborate fur hat [see Sumowski, Drawings of the Rembrandt School, vol. 1 (New York: Abaris Books, 1979), pp. 126-7, no. 56x]. He holds a prop in the manner of a scepter, and casually looks off to the right. Although the drawing does not relate to a painting, it is a costume study akin to a series of painted tronies (character studies of heads) made by Backer during the 1630s, one of which survives in the Mauritshuis, The Hague. The drawing is also comparable to a signed painting in the Boymans Museum, Rotterdam, of a young boy wearing a similar fur hat and also dating to the late 1640s. The elegant, exotic costume of the young man in the proposed drawing finds a precedent in Rembrandt's love of costume. Although Backer does not seem to have studied with Rembrandt, he was strongly influenced by him. Of the eighty odd drawings by Backer that survive today, most of them are studies of single figures executed in black and white chalk on blue paper. As a young artist in Amsterdam, Backer sometimes drew the same subjects as the Rembrandt pupil Govert Flinck; both artists favored the medium of chalks on blue paper. Backer earned a great reputation in his own time and his works were avidly sought after by 18th-century collectors.

Titles:

A Young Man with a Fur Hat Holding a Staff (recto); Study of the Head of a Man with a White Collar (verso) (preferred,C,U,RP,English-P,U,U)

Two Studies of a Young Man (C,U,DE,undetermined,U,U)

Catalog Level: item

Work Types:

drawing (visual work) [300033973] (preferred)

..... (Objects Facet, Visual and Verbal Communication (hierarchy name), Visual Works (hierarchy name), visual works (works), <visual works by material or technique>)

Classifications:

drawings (preferred)

Creation Date: late 1640s

Creator Display:

Jacob Adriaensz Backer (Dutch, 1608 - 1651) (Dutch Artist) [preferred,JPGM]

Backer, Jacob Adriaensz. (Dutch painter, 1608-1651) [500031967]

Locations:

Current: J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Center (Los Angeles, Los Angeles county, California, United States) [500329598] J. Paul Getty Museum, J. Paul Getty Trust, Corporate Bodies (Corp. Body)

Repository Numbers: 2008.32

Other: Creation: Nederland [7016845] Europe (continent), World (facet) (Geographic)

Display Materials: Black and white chalk on blue paper

	chalk [300011727]
	.......(Materials Facet, Materials (hierarchy name), materials (substances), <materials by composition>, inorganic material)

	paper (fiber product) [300014109]
	.......(Materials Facet, Materials (hierarchy name), materials (substances), <materials by form>, <materials by physical form>, <fiber and fiber by product>, <fiber by product>)

Dimensions: 30.1 x 20.3 cm (11 7/8 x 8 in.)

Cultures:

Dutch (preferred)

General Subject:

human figures (preferred)

portraits

Specific Subjects:

	prince (ruler) [300025482]
	.....(Agents Facet, People (hierarchy name), people (agents), <people by occupation>, <people in administration and government>, rulers (people)) (AAT)

	scepter [300214161]
	.....(Objects Facet, Visual and Verbal Communication (hierarchy name), Information Forms (hierarchy name), information forms (objects), information artifacts, <information artifacts by function>, identifying artifacts, symbols of office) (AAT)

Inscriptions: An old inscription on the verso "No 60 J Bakker"

List/Hierarchical Position:

..... Movable Works

.......... Movable Works by class: drawings, paintings, prints, other two-dimensional media

Sources and Contributors:
A Young Man with a Fur Hat Holding a Staff (recto); Study of the Head of a Man with a White Collar (verso)	........ [JPGM,VP]
	........ J. Paul Getty Museum database for collections (2000-)
Two Studies of a Young Man	........ [VP]
	........ Getty Vocabulary Program rules

Subject: ....... [JPGM,VP]

Note:
English	..... [JPGM]
	..... J. Paul Getty Museum database for collections (2000-)