Study of a Man Playing a Cello

Eric Hebborn, one of the best known art forgers of the twentieth century, drew this musician in the manner of Bartolomeo Cesi, a sixteenth-century Italian artist of the Bolognese School. The drawing is also similar to a study of a young man playing the bass viol by Orazio Samacchini, a sixteenth-century Italian Mannerist. Under the aegis of Felice Stampfle, former Curator of Drawings and Prints, and Charles Ryskamp, former Director, the Morgan played a key role in the investigation and unmasking of Hebborn.