JOHANNES STEPHAN VAN CALCAR (Kalkar, between 1499 and 1510 - Naples, 1545) Vanitas (Skull Study, 1539-1540) Red stone on white tracing paper, 27.2X20 cm Watermark: two clubs of arms in a decussate cross within a shield marked on the outside, along the curved profile, by four 'swallow-tailed' elements (similar to Briquet, no. 11643; Piccard, nos. 852, 859). Inscribed on the reverse in modern handwriting, in lapis along the lower margin, the numbers 51-18 followed by the letter P. Born in Germany in the Duchy of Kleve, Johannes Stephan van Calcar was a pupil of the Dutchman Jan van Scorel (Dacos 2001, p. 55) and came to Italy, sojourning in Rome and Florence before reaching Venice in 1523, where he frequented Titian Vecellio's workshop (cf. Kornell 2018, pp. 110-112, footnote 21). Giorgio Vasari, to whom we owe the earliest information on the artist, notes that in 1545 he moved to Naples where he died early 'while great things were hoped of him' (Vasari 1568, ed. 1878-1885, VII, 1881, p. 582). Having said this, Calcar's pictorial production highlights his ability to fuse Dutch taste with the poetics of 16th century Venetian and Florentine portraiture, so much so that Vasari did not hesitate to define him as 'practical in the manner of Italy'. However, there is no doubt that his intellectual fame and critical fortune is due to the famous treatise on human anatomy entitled 'De Humani Corporis Fabrica' published in Basel in 1543 by the Flemish Andrea Vesalio (1514-1564), who was a professor of medicine in Padua, and for whom Calcar designed the anatomical plates. The Rhenish artist's role was downplayed by critics over the years, attributing much of the undertaking to Titian and others, but recent studies have rehabilitated the important contribution of ours by referring to him for the osteological plates, the graphic design of the frontispiece and the fourteen Scorticates presented on the full page of the treatise, as well as the coeval plates of the Epitome (cf. Pagnotta 2020, pp. 60-62). Having said this, we know that the painter's surviving drawings are as meagre as ever, counting just two sheets by a certain hand. Undisputed originals, both executed in sanguine and characterised by a remarkable accuracy of line, are the Studies of Bones from the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento and the Skeleton in the Act of Meditating from a private collection (Fabbri 2019). Therefore, the skull presented here is a very important addition to the artist's catalogue, in which the two possible approaches to the model coexist in perfect equilibrium: the scientific and the expressive approach of the painter, combining adherence to reality with an extraordinary artistic sensitivity, achieved with skilful parallel hatching simulating areas of shadow and with a skilful direction of light. Light that, penetrating from above along a diagonal, invests the skull from the left, recreating on the paper that clear chiaroscuro alternation capable of describing the solids and voids, skilfully delineating the contrast between the convexity of the frontal bone in full light and the dark eye, nose and internal cavities of the skull base. The result must therefore be judged as being of the highest quality and, between art and science, the anatomical study becomes, in the hands of the author, a surprising Vanitas alluding to human transience and the emptiness of speculative endeavours. The work is accompanied by a critical card by Maria Cecilia Fabbri and a certificate of free circulation. Reference bibliography M. C. Fabbri, M. R. Caiati, Andreæ Vesalii Philosopher by Jan Steven van Calcar, Florence 2019, ad vocem In the shadow of Vesalius. An exciting series of new insights into life and work of Andreas Vesalius and his friends, edited by R. Van Hee, Antwerp-Apeldoorn 2020, ad vocem L. Pagnotta, Johannes Stephan van Calcar, Catalogo ragionato, Soncino 2020, ad vocem