101 - 101. Atelier de Sir Peter Paul Rubens (Siegen 1577-1640 Anve…

Estimate €15,000 - €20,000

Description

101. Atelier de Sir Peter Paul Rubens (Siegen 1577-1640 Anvers) Etude de putto black, red and white chalks on buff paper laid down on paper 27,1 x 16.1cm (10 11/16 x 6 5/16in). Provenance The Collection of Georges Bourgarel Sale, Gutekunst & Klipstein, Bern, 22 November 1956, lot 272 Private Collection, England Sale, Hampel, Munich, 30 June 2022, lot 335 This highly finished study relates to the putto at the upper left of Peter Paul Rubens's celebrated altarpiece The Virgin and Child surrounded by the Holy Innocents (Paris, Musée du Louvre, INV 1763 ; MR 995), painted in 1618. Although closely corresponding to the figure in the final composition, the present sheet possesses the immediacy and naturalism of a study drawn from life, reflecting the practice within Rubens's workshop of adapting observed models into painted compositions. Throughout this period, Rubens and his studio frequently used studies of children as the basis for figures that reappear in paintings. The present drawing belongs to this tradition, combining careful observation with fluid handling and sensitive modelling. Its close relationship to the Louvre altarpiece provides valuable insight into the creative process behind one of the master's most celebrated religious compositions. Long regarded as an autograph work by Rubens and previously offered as such (see Sale, Sotheby's, New York, 28 January 2015, lot 62), recent scholarship has placed the drawing within the artist's studio, suggesting that it was executed by a workshop assistant working under the master's supervision. Nevertheless, the sheet remains an important document of the working practices of the Rubens atelier around 1618, illustrating the collaborative process through which studies from life were transformed into finished compositions.

About the sale Old Master and 19th Century Paintings

Auction location

Auction time 11/04/2026 at 1:00 PM

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