Artist: Unidentified artist
Title: Portrait drawing of an abbé
Date: XVIIIth-century
School: French, French XVIIIth-century
Medium: drawing on laid paper, black chalk with some grey wash
Dimensions: 320 x 242mm (sheet), 352 x 250 (with mount)
Watermark: none
Inscriptions/marks: artist’s initials in black chalk lower right (see image below),
inscribed with a verse executed in pen and ink on a separate piece of paper stuck below the image <<Comme deux gouttes d’eau, ressemble ce portrait,/Voiez l’Original, c’est bien lui trait pour trait,/Son rabat chiffonné, nous annonce le Zele,/Avec lequel il Sçait, convertir une belle.>>
Condition: fair, some rubbing, trimmed at the left edge, small loss on right edge, pin holes on right edge and just below the right eye, shaved on the verso from an earlier mount, evidence of repair with black sealing wax. (see image below)
Description: Head and shoulder portrait of an abbé turned almost frontal with a libertine anti-clerical verse attached below.
Provenance: Christie’s, London, Old Master Drawings, 7 July 1992, lot. 349
