FOLLOWER OF SIR PETER PAUL RUBENS | Study of a black woman wearing a cap

oil on paper, laid on canvas This painting is closely related to two drawings connected with Rubens and his circle, which depict the same model wearing the same cap. The first is a black chalk study attributed to Rubens in full, in a private collection in Paris, formerly owner by Alfred Normand.1 It depicts the woman's head in profile, inclined at an angle towards the viewer, looking out to the left of the picture frame, as in the present work. The second drawing is executed in bodycolour, heightened with white over black chalk, attributed to Rubens' circle, in the British Museum, London (inv. no. 1897,0410.13).2 In that drawing, the model has a slightly softer expression, with her head tilted to a different position again. In the second decade of the 16th century, the German Renaissance master Albrecht Dürer drew some of the first portraits of people from Africa from life, during a trip to the Netherlands. A century later, Rubens was the next great artist to execute some of the most sympathetic studies of black men and women in Europe, such as the 'Studies of a black man', today in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels (inv. no. 3176).3 1 https://rkd.nl/explore/images/2624682 http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=709256&partId=1&searchText=black+woman&page=13 https://www.fine-arts-museum.be/fr/la-collection/peter-paul-rubens-quatre-etudes-de-la-tete-d-un-maure?artist=rubens-peter-paul-1&page=3

Sir Robert Henry Edward Abdy, 5th Bt. (1896–1976), London and Paris;
Thence by inheritance.

All paintings available to view at the Sotheby’s Greenford Park warehouse, 5 - 7 and 10 – 13 September (10 - 4pm), by appointment. The paper is laid down on a canvas with a very firm relining. The paint surface is relatively clean and the varnish only slightly discoloured. There are a handful of visible wrinkles in the paper running horizontally from the centre of the right margin, and it is just possible to discern what was perhaps an old fold running the width of the centre. Inspection under ultraviolet light reveals quite extensive spot retouchings throughout the background, most concentrated in the centre of the left margin, but the figure remains largely untouched save for restoration to a damage in her veil and chest on the left measuring 6 x 2 cm., and a handful of spot retouchings in her nose, headdress, around her earring, and in the lower right corner.
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