This drawing was first recognised by Bernard Dorival as a study for Saint Theresa in the picture of the Christ showing his Wounds to Saint Theresa painted on a gold ground, now in the Musée Granet, Aix-en Provence, E. Mâle, L'art religieux après le concile de Trente, Paris, 1932, fig. 83. The picture depicts one of Theresa's visions, as recounted in her life: 'sometimes He showed me His wounds, sometimes I saw Him in the garden of Gethsemany, then carrying the cross, crowned with thorns', Mâle, op. cit., p. 162.
Another picture of Saint Theresa by Jean-Baptiste de Champaigne is in the Tourcoing museum. Both the Tourcoing and Aix pictures could be part of Champaigne's painted series of six compositions on Saint Theresa's life, mentioned in an inventory of 1789 of the Carmel of Faubourg-Saint-Jacques. According to Guillet de Saint Georges, he also painted a picture with Saint Theresa for the ceiling of the Oratory of Queen Marie-Therese in Versailles in 1680.
A drawing of Saint Theresa in Ecstasy by Jean-Baptiste de Champaigne, probably related to the cycle painted for the Carmel of the Faubourg-Saint-Jacques, is in the Darmstadt Museum, B. Dorival, Philippe de Champaigne, Paris, 1976, no. 1694, illustrated. A large sketch of A Carmelite kneeling before Christ, probably related to the Aix picture, was in the Nogaret sale, 2 June 1780, lot 140.
Jean-Baptiste de Champaigne came from Brussels to Paris in 1642 to join his uncle Philippe de Champaigne after the death of his cousin. He worked with his uncle on the commission for the Val-de Grâce around 1646 and unlike him, travelled to Italy in 1658-9. Upon his return he worked for various commissions in Vincennes and Versailles.