ABSTRACT
In the world of the fifteenth-century artist, patterns and drawings were important and valuable commodities. They were jealously guarded and coveted. When they were stolen, it was a serious matter, and recompense for the loss, even if temporary, and punishment for the thief, were sought. When in 1398 Jean de Hollande accused Jacquemart de Hesdin, an illuminator in the service of Jean de Berry, of stealing his drawings, the dispute ended in murder. 1 The famous quarrel between the painters Ambrosius Benson and Gerard David which resulted in a lengthy law-suit in Bruges in 1519-20 was in part over David refusing to hand back drawings specified as for paintings and miniatures, 'a sketchbook full of heads and nudes', and several pattern drawings which belonged to him but which had originally come from Adrien Isenbrant, all of which Benson had left in David's workshop. 2
