Maria de’ Medici (1573–1642)
Drawing
c.1622 (made)
c.1622 (made)
| Artist/Maker | |
| Place of origin |
A study for the head of the Queen in 'The Majority of Louis XIII' in the Louvre (Rosenberg 258). Head and shoulders only; her face is turned to the left, nearly in profile seen from below. She wears a single pearl earring and what is clearly a pearl necklace; her shoulders are bare, apart from the indication of a veil seen on the left.
Object details
| Category | |
| Object type | |
| Title | Maria de’ Medici (1573–1642) (published title) |
| Materials and techniques | Black chalk (wet on the eye) with touches of red chalk on the hair and face (wet on the mouth and nostrils), heightened with white on paper |
| Brief description | Drawing; A study for the head of Maria de’ Medici (1573–1642), in the "Majority of Louis XIII"; by Peter Paul Rubens; Black chalk with touches of red chalk heightened with white, Flemish School, c.1622 |
| Physical description | A study for the head of the Queen in 'The Majority of Louis XIII' in the Louvre (Rosenberg 258). Head and shoulders only; her face is turned to the left, nearly in profile seen from below. She wears a single pearl earring and what is clearly a pearl necklace; her shoulders are bare, apart from the indication of a veil seen on the left. |
| Dimensions |
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| Style | |
| Production type | Unique |
| Marks and inscriptions | Inscribed in brown ink: at lower left, by Padre Resta, Monsu Bernardo discepol.o di Rambrand dubitò che fusse / David Bex, Suedese d.o id Gondonlene (?) [sic] p[er] Christina Regina di Suetia (‘Monsù Bernardo [Keilhau], pupil of Rembrandt, doubted that it was by David Beck, Swedish so-called ... for Christina, Queen of Sweden’); at lower right, in another hand, Monsu Malville lo chiamò / di Rubbens & Maria de Medici / in Parigi (‘Mr Malville [identified] it as by Rubens of Maria de’ Medici in Paris’); and between these, by John, Lord Somers, l. 306. |
| Gallery label |
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| Credit line | Bequeathed by Miss Emily Dalton, 1900 |
| Object history | Note: In the collection of Lord Somers, ca. 1700. Monsu Bernardo mentioned in the inscription was Bernhard Keil (1624-1687), while David Bex refers to the Dutch artist David Beck (1621-1656), who in 1647 was appointed court painter to Queen Christina and in 1653 was working in Rome under the pseudonym Gulden Szepter. See F. Lugt Notes sur Rubens in La Gazette des Beaux Arts, vol XII, 1925, pp. 179-202, and Gluck and Haberditzl, catalogue no. and plate 151, where the date of the drawing is given as 1622. See Rowlans No. 153 (p.112) Provenance: Padre Sebastiano Resta (1635–1714), Milan (Book L, no. 306) (L. 2992); John, Lord Somers, Chancellor of England (1650–1716), London (L. 2981); Miss Emily Dalton (1816/17–1900), Leicester, by whom bequeathed to the museum (NAL dry stamp on recto; not in Lugt), 1900. |
| Subject depicted | |
| Bibliographic reference | Jane Shoaf Turner and Christopher White, Catalogue of Dutch and Flemish Drawings in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 2014, vol. II, Cat. 526, illus. p. 450 |
| Collection | |
| Accession number | D.906-1900 |
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| Record created | June 30, 2009 |
| Record URL |
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