The Coronation of Maria de'Medici

The same composition, in reverse, as Rubens's preparatory oil sketch of the Coronation of Maria de'Medici at Saint Denis on 13 May 1610, now in the Hermitage (C. Eisler, Paintings in the Hermitage, New York, 1990, p. 398, illustrated p. 403). That sketch, dated to circa 1622-5, is of almost the same format as the present drawing, and the brown oil on the paper may suggest that this is in fact a reworked counterproof from the Hermitage oil sketch. Such a counterproof could have been made as a study for the large finished work of the same subject in the Louvre. This work shows a closely related but wider composition with additional figures and other variations and is in reverse to the Hermitage sketch. A finished oil sketch for the final composition, again in reverse, is in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich. All are dated to circa 1622-5.
Carl Depauw has suggested that the present lot may have been made in preparation for a print.