The Education of the Virgin (recto); The Head of a young Girl looking up to the right and Studies of Hands (verso)

The recto of this sheet is a study for the seated Saint Anne in L'Education de la Vierge avec Saint Blaise et Sainte Marguerite of around 1638 in the Cathedral of Saint-Vran in Cavaillon. The verso with two red chalk studies of hands are for the right hands of Saint Blaise and Sainte Marguerite. Nicolas Mignard folded the blank part of the verso at a later date, and drew the head of the child related to the one of Christ in Jsus-Christ au milieu des Docteurs, painted in 1649 for the chapterhouse of Villeneuve-ls-Avignon and now in the city museum. Three other drawings for this picture are known, one in a private collection, Marseilles, and two in the Louvre. One of them is drawn on the recto of a sheet showing a study for Sainte Anne, la Vierge et Saint Bruno, dated as well to 1639, which shows that Mignard did not hesitate to re-use earlier drawings.