drawing
- Museum number
- 1854,0628.106
- Description
-
Head of a woman in profile to left
Pen and brown ink
- Production date
- 1600-1610
- Dimensions
-
Height: 66 millimetres
-
Width: 24 millimetres (irregularly cut)
- Curator's comments
- A fragment of what must have been a larger sheet with more studies, there is little about this profile drawing to immediately associate it with Rubens. Popham, however, rightly recognised similarities with the series of antique heads attributed to Rubens that are held at Chatsworth - compare also those antique heads attributed to Rubens in the British Museum, such as the twin profile of Cupid and Psyche (inv.1858,0626.134). The hanlding of the drawing is also consistent with the fine shading technique and elegant contours of Rubens penmanship.
Lit: J. Rowlands, ‘Rubens: Drawings and Sketches’, exhibition catalogue, British Museum,1977, no.97.
Entry from J. Rowlands, ‘Rubens: Drawings and Sketches’, exhibition catalogue, British Museum,1977:
This tiny fragment probably drawn after the Antique was formerly attributed to Perino del Vaga. It was recognised to be by Rubens by A. E. Popham in 1937.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
1977 BM, Rubens drawings and sketches, no.97
- Acquisition date
- 1854
- Acquisition notes
- 1854,0628.81 to 117 were purchased from Tiffin and the register records that they were all drawings that he had bought on his own account at the Woodburn sale. The Bill Book gives prices and agrees that all of them came from the Woodburn sale. Neither source gives the lot numbers. These have been added to the records when they are obvious. The small dimensions of the drawings 1854,0628.89 to 110 and their shared English provenance of Lely and/or Richardson would suggest that they come from a common source, perhaps lot 1550 in the Woodburn sale 23 June 1854 ('A scrap-book, containing a numerous collection of small Italian studies' bought bt Tiffin £3-15-0).
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1854,0628.106