- Museum number
- Nn,7.51.3
- Description
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Right hand of Artemisia Gentileschi holding a brush. 1625
Black and red chalk
- Production date
- 1585-1656
- Dimensions
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Height: 219 millimetres
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Width: 180 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
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- Curator's comments
- This is not a study of a generic hand, but the hand of the famous and talented Italian painter, Artemisia Gentileschi, whom Dumonstier apparently met in Rome. An elegant and calligraphic inscription across the top of the sheet proudly proclaims that the drawing was, `made in Rome by Pierre Dumonstier, Parisian, the last day of December, 1625, after the worthy hand of the excellent and skilful Artemisia, gentlewoman of Rome.' An inscription on the verso goes on to compare the painter to the goddess Aurora. In short, the hand, poised with a delicate grip on a fine-tipped brush, is a substitute for the artist herself, making this a symbolic portrait.
Pierre Dumonstier II was a member of an extended family of artists, at least five of whom, from the sixteenth to the early seventeenth centuries, specialized in portrait drawings in chalk. Pierre II (sometimes called `le neveu', the nephew) appears, from extant sheets, to have been less prolific than his cousin Daniel Dumonstier. Louis Dimier, in his `Histoire de la peinture de portrait en France au XVIe siècle`, catalogued only ten chalk drawings by Pierre Dumonstier II.(n.1) Dumonstier's habit of inscribing his drawings provides some chronological ordering as well as some indications of his travels. Mariette, in his brief entry on Dumonstier for his `Abécédario`, mentions having seen a drawing signed and dated 1625, with a note that it had been drawn in Turin.(n.2) Accepting this, the drawing of Artemisia's hand would have been made not long after Dumonstier's arrival in Rome. In 1625 Artemisia Gentileschi had been back in Rome for five years, following a seven-year period in Florence. Dumonstier's drawing and its adulatory inscription have frequently been cited in the recent literature on Artemisia as evidence of her fame and high standing at this point in her career.(n.3)
The ten drawings catalogued by Dimier were (with the exception of the present sheet and one copy after Raphael) all portraits or drawings of heads in red and black chalk, sometimes with additional coloured chalks. Since then another drawing of a hand has appeared, a `Hand Holding a Handkerchief` (fig.1; Horvitz collection) (n.4) similar in format and technique to the present drawing, the Horvitz `Hand` was done in Rome and bears a signature and a date (12 June 1627). Although it is not known to whom the hand belonged, it is, like Artemisia's hand, modelled with subtlety and eloquently posed to convey a sense of refinement and grace.
Text by P. Stein, 2005 as cited below.
Fig.1 PIERRE DUMONSTIER II, `Hand Holding a Handkerchief`, 1627, black and red chalk, heightened with white chalk on cream antique laid paper, 245 x 190 mm, The Horvitz Collection, Boston (1.1997.47).
Notes
1 L. Dimier, `Histoire de la peinture de portrait en France au XVIe siècle`, Paris and Brussels, 1924-6, II, pp.300-4.
2 P. de Chennevières and A. de Montaiglon (eds), ``Abécédario`de P. J. Mariette`, vols 1-6, Paris, 1851-60 (reprinted 1966), II (1853-4), p.131.
3 See M. Garrard, `The Intake of the Female Hero in Italian Baroque Art`, Princeton and Oxford, 1989, pp.63-4; R. Bissell, `Artemisia Gentileschi`, Pennsylvania, 1999, pp.39; K. Chistiansen and J.W. Mann, exhib.cat., `Orazio and Artemisia Gentileschi`, New York, 2002, pp.268 and 339.
4 A. L. Clark (ed.), exhib.cat., Cambridge, Toronto, Paris, Edinburgh, New York and Los Angeles, `Mastery and Elegance: Two Centuries of French Drawings from the Collection of Jeffrey E. Horvitz`, 1998-2000, p.416, no.Aii7.
Lit.: P. Stein, in exhib. cat., New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art and London, BM, 'French Drawings from Clouet to Seurat', 2005, no. 12 (with previous literature).
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
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2005/6 Nov-Jan, New York, Met Mus of Art, Clouet to Seurat/BM
2006 June-Oct, BM, Clouet to Seurat/BM
2016-17 Sept-Jan, BM, 'French Portrait Drawings' (no cat)
2020-2021 3 Oct-24 Jan, London, NG, Artemisia
- Acquisition date
- 1835
- Acquisition notes
- VC (Anon Lugt 2508).
The drawing was part of Lot 104 in the Sloman Sale containing 5 items.
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- Nn,7.51.3
- Additional IDs
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Miscellaneous number: 1835,0711.35.3