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MOSES

measurements note
332 by 197mm

red and traces of white chalk on buff paper, made up in the top left corner

PROVENANCE

Jonathan Richardson Senr. (L.2184);
William Mayor (L.2799), his sale, London, Sotheby's, 17 March 1882, lot 159;
Dr. Guy Bellingham-Smith, his sale, Amsterdam, A.W.M. Mensing, 5-6 July 1927, lot 290, reproduced (as the figure of an Apostle), sold to Rhodius;
sale, Amsterdam, Sotheby Mak van Waay, 2 November 1987, lot 47

EXHIBITED

London, Dowdeswell Galleries, 1912, no. 76

LITERATURE

M. Jaffé, 'Rediscovered Oil Sketches by Rubens - II', in The Burlington Magazine, vol. CXI, no. 798, September 1969, p. 534, under no. 62, reproduced fig. 11;
M. Jaffé, review of J.S. Held, The Oil Sketches of Peter Paul Rubens, a Critical Catalogue (2 vols, Princeton, NJ, 1980), in Apollo, vol. CXV, no. 239, 1982, p. 62;
R.-A. d'Hulst and M. Vandenven, Rubens, The Old Testament, (Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard, part III), London 1989, pp.84-5, cat. no. 21, reproduced fig. 50

NOTE

This fine, large red chalk figure study by Rubens was published by Michael Jaffé (loc. cit., 1969) as a study for the figure of Moses in a modello, now in Karlsruhe, depicting Moses, Aaron and Miriam celebrate the Crossing of the Red Sea (see J.S. Held, The Oil Sketches of Peter Paul Rubens, a Critical Catalogue, 2 vols, Princeton, NJ, 1980, p. 634, cat. no. A19, reproduced fig. 489). Held (loc. cit.) subsequently doubted the attribution of the modello to Rubens, but the figure in the present drawing is in any case not particularly close in pose to that in the Karlsruhe painting; as d'Hulst and Vandenven have pointed out (loc. cit.), there are actually closer similarities with the figure of Moses in the tapestry depicting The Gathering of the Manna, one of the series of tapestries depicting episodes from the Eucharist, now in the Convent of the Descalzas Reales in Madrid (see N. de Poorter, The Eucharist Series (Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard, part II), Brussels/London/New York 1978, pp. 294-6, fig. 132).