Rubens drawing discovery

May 28 2013

Image of Rubens drawing discovery

Picture: getreading.co.uk

The Reading Post reports:

A 17th century drawing by artist Sir Peter Paul Rubens has been discovered at the University of Reading.

Just 10.8cm x 8.9cm in size, the drawing is valued at £75,000 and shows a profile view of the head of Marie de Médicis, Queen of France as the second wife of King Henry IV of France.

The sketch was probably made in preparation for some life size paintings in the collection of the Louvre.

The drawing was acquired by an Oxford collector Henry Wellesly, the illegitimate son of the Duke of Wellington, who bought drawings for the Ashmolean. The university acquired the sketch for teaching purposes in the 1950s for no more than £50.

Update - a reader asks:

Am intrigued. 

Was it acquired in the 1950’s as an anonymous drawing and has now been correctly attributed ? 

£50.00 for a drawing in the 1950’s would have not been insignificant.

Or

Have they now just worked out where it’s been all this time (like stuck to the back of a David Shepherd watercolour of an elephant) ?

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