Lot Essay
This large and striking drawing can be situated in the circle of Rubens, despite the fact that it cannot be related to any of his works and the number at lower right could suggest it was created after the master’s death. At least three other drawings by different artists depict the same woman wearing similar headdress: two in bodycolour, possibly by the same hand, at the British Museum (inv. 1897,0410.13; see A.M. Hind, Drawings by Rubens, Van Dyck and Other Artists of the Flemish School of the XVII Century, London, 1923, p. 32, no. 104, pl XIII, as by Rubens), and formerly in the online sale, Sotheby’s, London, 12 September 2018, lot 49 (as by a follower of Rubens); and a third in black chalk, heightened with white on buff paper in a French private collection (Dessins des écoles du Nord dans les collections privées françaises, exhib. cat., Paris, Galerie Claude Aubry, 1974, no. 89, ill., as by Rubens). The headdress, in addition to the pearls and earrings she is wearing in the coloured studies, may indicate that the model was dressed as a woman in the service of some court, to be used in a history painting such as the black servant in a picture representing Achilles at the court of Lycomedes from the workshop of Rubens in the Museo Nacional del Prado (inv. P-1661; see G. Martin in Rubens. Mythological Subjects. Achilles to the Graces, 2016, I, no. 1, II, fig. 1); or as a personification of the African continent, as in a painting by Jan Boeckhorst from the second half of the 1650s in the Liechtenstein collection, Vienna (inv. HB-9; see M. Galen, Johann Boeckhorst. Gemälde und Zeichnungen, Hamburg, 2012, no. 40, ill.).