Study of a drapery showing the legs of a reclining figure (recto); A partial study of an arm (verso)

The figure in the present drawing was studied again in the Reclining woman seen from her left side in the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm (J. Bolten, Abraham Bloemaert c.1565-1651: The Drawings, Amsterdam, 2007, I, no. 894). That drawing has been dated by Bolten to 1600-05 and its relationship to the present work is not entirely clear: this may be an elaboration of the drapery in the Stockholm sheet, or it could be the study from a model which was later used as the basis for the drawing in Stockholm. A figure in a similar pose, though with differently arranged drapery, appears in the copy after a lost original showing A sitting young man with a bust of a woman and drapery in the Maidstone Museum and Art Gallery (Bolten, op. cit., no. 896a).

We are grateful to Jaap Bolten for confirming the attribution to Bloemaert on the basis of a digital image.