JACOB JORDAENS
89 Head of a Woman
Black and red chalk, dark brown wash, and whit
gouache heightening; H: 25.2 cm (9I5/i6 in.); W: 18.8 cm
( 7 3 /8 in.)
85.00.298
MARKS AND INSCRIPTIONS: At bottom right corner,
collection mark of A. G. B. Russell (L. Suppl. 2y7oa).
PROVENANCE: A. G. B. Russell, London (sale, Sothe
by's, London, June 9, 1955, lot 5); Cesar de Hauke, Paris;
private collection, Switzerland (sale, Christie's, London,
July 4, 1984, lot I28A); art market, New York.
EXHIBITIONS: Exhibition on Behalf of the Artists' General
Benevolent Institution, Thomas Agnew and Sons, Lon
don, 1923, no. 32. Exhibition of Flemish Art, 1300-1900,
Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1927, no. 621 (cata-
logue by C. Dodgson et al.).
BIBLIOGRAPHY: T. Borenius, "Drawings in the Collec-
tion of Mr. Archibald G. B. Russell," Connoisseur 66
(May 1923), pp. 2, 10; T. W. Muchall-Viebrook, Flemish
Drawings of the Seventeenth Century (London, 1926), pp.
20; 36, no. 55; L. van Puyvelde, Jordaens (Paris, 1953), p.
211 ; R.-A. d'Hulst, De Tekeningen van Jacob Jordaens
(Brussels, 1956), pp. 242, 244, 370-371, no. 119 ; idem,
Jordaens Drawings (London, 1974), vols. i, no. AI24; 2 ,
pi. 136; idem, Jacob Jordaens (London, 1982), pp. 164,
312.
eTHIS RICHLY DRAWN SiUDY OF A WOMAN'S HEAD
was thought by Borenius (1923, p. 10) to be a portrait of
the artist's wife, Catharina van Noort. This hypothesis
was ignored, and presumably rejected, by d'Hulst (1974,
vol. i, no. A124), who dated it to circa 1635. Despite its
resemblance to known representations of her, d'Hulst
appears to be correct. The sheet represents a study from
life of a rather pedestrian figure, similar in feeling to oth-
ers in the quite substantial group of drawings by Jordaens
of about the same period (d'Hulst 1974, vol. i, nos.
AI25-AI35). It differs only in the use of wash shadows,
a feature that recurs in a somewhat later drawing of a sol-
dier in the A. Leysen collection, Antwerp (d'Hulst 1974,
vol. i, no. Ai42b).200 FLEMISH SCHOOL • JORDAENS