Attributed to Joachim Anthonisz. Wtewael

Bears unidentified collector's mark, lower right, not in Lugt (dry stamp, flower superimposed on letter N);
sale, Amsterdam, Sotheby's, 15 November 1994, lot 79

Wtewael regularly made multiple versions of his most important drawings, and three other, slightly larger, drawn versions of this composition are known, in Dresden¹, in the Lugt Collection², and recently on the Paris art market.³  In almost all respects the four drawings correspond precisely, with the important exception of the pentimenti seen here in the hands of both figures.  Anne Lowenthal considers the Lugt drawing and that recently sold as unquestionably autograph, and the present drawing to be a weaker, though possibly still autograph, repetition.  At the time of the 1994 sale, however, Carlos van Hasselt observed in a letter that the present version is "much more lively than ours [the Lugt drawing] and the Dresden version, which are rather flat."  Given the pentimenti, which seem to record the process by which the artist arrived at the positioning of the hands seen in the other versions of the drawing, it seems reasonable to conclude that this version is indeed autograph, and perhaps even the earliest of the known versions.

The close relationship between the figure of the Samaritan woman and two others found in the drawings of Belgica and the young Maurits at the Bier of William of Orange and The Surrender of the City⁴, from the famous Netherlands History series which Wtewael executed in 1612, suggests a similar dating for the present sheet. 

1.  Dresden, Kupferstichkabinett, inv. C1967-2
2.  Paris, Fondation Custodia, Frits Lugt Collection, inv. 6311
3.  Sold, Paris, Christie's, 29 March 2012, lot 63
4.  Vienna, Albertina, inv. 8158 and 8160