La Mort d’Adonis and Caïn tuant Abel

These two drawings, attributed to Lambert Lombard (1505-1566), the eminent Renaissance painter, architect and humanist from Liege, were purchased in Paris in 2011. Both La Mort d’Adonis (The Death of Adonis) and Caïn tuant Abel (Cain Killing Abel) come from a book of sketches by Lambert Lombard, which contained hundreds of side by side sketches. Much later on, the book was dismantled and so the sketches and parts of the notebook were dispersed. The King Baudouin Foundation had already had the opportunity, in 2000, to purchase and return to Liege the Album de Clérembault, a collection of 69 drawings with the same provenance. La Mort d’Adonis and Caïn tuant Abel have naturally been returned to join the other parts of this ensemble. Most of the drawings are anatomical studies or small groups of figures such as Adam and Eve, Venus and Cupid, Hercules and Antaeus, or Abraham and Isaac. These two drawings have now been reunited with the other works from Lombard’s exceptional collection, which contains other variations on the same themes. The sketches demonstrate the richness of this series of figures in movement created by Lombard and to which he frequently resorted. Website Musée des Beaux-Arts de Liège Further information about the Heritage Fund (in French)