A portrait by Rubens of his son Frans: a drawing by Rubens of the eldest son from his second marriage has recently been lent to the National Gallery of Scotland by the Duke of Sutherland. Christopher Baker explains its significance and traces its provenance

Christopher Baker

Rubens's drawings of his children are among the most enchanting works of the type created during the seventeenth century: they have long been admired as portraits in which he distils his formidable skills of observation and empathy. One of the most appealing, although perhaps least well known of such studies, is his depiction of Frans Rubens--his eldest son from his second marriage (Fig. 1)--which forms part of the collection of the Duke of Sutherland. Although featured in the standard Corpus of Rubens's portraits, (1) this sheet has remained relatively little studied; it was not included in the last major drawings exhibition in Britain surveying the artist's career, (2) and until now has never been published in colour. (3) It has, however, recently been placed on long-term loan to the National Gallery of Scotland--a generous gesture that has made possible a fresh re-appraisal of its status, relationship with other works by Rubens, and trajectory through a series of distinguished collections.

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The portrait is drawn on a sheet of unprepared light-brown laid paper chiefly in black and red chalk, with some slight touches of white in the boy's hair and on the feathers in his hat, and brown chalk in his irises (Fig. 1 and 4). (4) In spite of the touches of brown, it is essentially executed a trois crayons--a technique customarily used by Rubens for family and other portraits. This approach may have been inspired by the drawings of Hendrick Goltzius he could have studied on trips to the Northern Netherlands in 1612 and 1627, in which a similar technique was employed. (5)

The Sutherland drawing was worked up in two stages, with the outline of the face, clothes and hat being broadly and lightly established first, and then very detailed red chalk hatching applied across the face to define its volume and the softness and pallor of the skin. The boy's features have probably slightly faded and there is a very small area of abrasion on the paper close to his chin. However, overall the portrait survives in remarkably fine condition, and conveys a compelling impression of the effects Rubens strove to achieve when studying his young son's face in the mid-1630s.

The ruddy features that characterise the drawing can also be seen in a number of Rubens's studies of his children, including his outstanding portrait of Nicolaas Rubens in Vienna. (6) The use of red chalk for such studies was commonplace, (7) but it is possible that Rubens was aware of specific advice about how to depict such details through his connection with Edward Norgate (1581-1650), the author of the Art of Limning. Norgate, who was in contact with Rubens intermittently from 1618 to the end of the artist's life, (8) outlined techniques for miniature painting that had a broader application to many other forms of draughtsmanship. He developed a programme of decorum, according to which the complexions of sitters would be treated in different ways depending upon their age, sex and temperament. (9) For portraits of children he established particular considerations to bear in mind:

   Infants being of a soft tender, and
   thin Complexion, the Crimson and
   fine coloured blood appearing
   through the skin almost transparent
   is best exprest with ... the shadows
   thin, faint and subtile, the Cheeks,
   Lipps fingers ... dasht with a soft
   tincture of Red more discernable in
   those than in any other parts of
   the body (10)

Frans's features could certainly be described as 'dasht with a soft tincture of Red'. Rubens was, however, never a mere slavish follower of decorum and always balanced such formulae with close scrutiny of his subjects.

His observation of his children resulted in them featuring in various guises as both infants and youths in his paintings and drawings throughout his life. (11) Three of Rubens's children were born to his first wife, Isabella Brant (1591-1626): Clara Serena (1611-23), Albert (1614-57) and Nicolaas (1618-55); and five to his second wife, Helena Fourment (1614-74), whom he married in 1630, when she was sixteen and he was fifty-three. Helena's children were Clara Johanna (1632-89), Frans (1633-78), Isabella Helena (1635-52), Peter Paul (1637-84) and Constantina Albertina (1641-54), who was born just after her father's death.

There are three surviving painted portraits by Rubens which show Frans with his mother, Helena. All are painted on panel and were intended for the family circle rather than as works for any of Rubens's patrons. The earliest painting, which was probably worked on in 1634-35 (Alte Pinakothek, Munich), shows the two-year-old Frans seated naked on his mother's lap--with both sitters looking directly at Rubens and the viewer. (12) Although at this time he was continuing to fulfil numerous commissions and was actively involved in diplomatic activities, it evokes a period of relative leisure for Rubens: on 2 July 1634 he told Peiresc in a letter 'I am leading a quiet life with my wife and children and have no pretensions in the world other than to live in peace.' (13)

The second portrait, which is now in the Louvre (Fig. 2), (14) was perhaps painted eighteen months later, in about 1636-37, once the family had acquired the chateau of Het Steen. It is probably almost exactly contemporary with the Sutherland drawing, judging by the age of Frans, as he was born on 12 July 1633 and appears here to be about three years old. He is depicted clothed in this painting, wearing a feathered bonnet, and again confronts the viewer directly. His mother stares down at him, almost in an attitude of devotion, and his slightly older sister, Clara Johanna, stands at the left. Although she does not appear in the final work, Rubens intended to include Isabella Helena in the composition, and a drawn study for her survives in the Louvre. As Christopher White has pointed out, in both the Munich and Paris paintings it is Frans who is the focus of attention--a status that would have been considered his due as the first boy born to Rubens and Helena. (15) Against the backdrop of these images, the Sutherland drawing should also be seen as another product of the pride and affection he evidently inspired.

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The third painting in this group, which is also in the Louvre, is somewhat different. (16) It was perhaps painted two years later, and shows Frans standing behind his splendidly dressed mother, almost as though he had taken on the role of a page.

Other surviving drawn studies of Frans as a child can be linked with these painted portraits. Those connected with the 1636-37 Louvre picture, with which the Sutherland drawing is associated, include a compositional study (in the collection of the Museo de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires), of both mother and child, which has recently been published for the first time by Anne-Marie Logan. (17) This work was used as the prototype for two further drawings now in Rotterdam--an early copy of the head of Frans and a counterproof of it in the same collection. (18) The Sutherland portrait is a far more highly wrought and controlled image than any other sketch in this group, which suggests it has something of a distinctive and isolated status, and perhaps stands slightly apart from the detailed planning of the Louvre painting.

The view is often expressed that all Rubens's drawings formed part of a process leading directly to works in other media--whether paintings or prints--rather than being an end in themselves. (19) But the characteristics of a number of the artist's drawn family portraits, such as his depiction of Frans, suggest a distinction between the majority of his output and noncommissioned studies produced for his immediate circle, which are semi-autonomous and were perhaps always meant to be prized and regarded as works of art in their own right. (20)

All the painted and drawn portraits featuring Frans may additionally allude to questions of status in a broader sense, as it has been noted on a number of occasions that Rubens's second family tend to be far more graciously and flamboyantly dressed than his first, and it has been suggested that this was a measure of the social changes which had occurred in his household, chiefly because of his increasing wealth and public distinction. (21) Frans's own connections and career reflect the relative grandeur of the latter part of Rubens's life. From the outset he was in illustrious company. According to Rubens's nephew Philip: 'Francis de Moncada, the Marquis of Aytona, governor of Flanders, received the first-born son from the baptismal font and named him Frans; he now sits in the senate of Brabant.' (22) At the age of thirty-one, in 1664, Frans was appointed a member of the Council of Brabant--so following in the footsteps of his brother-in-law (the husband of Clara Joanna), Philip van Parijs, Lord of Merxem and Dambrugge, a councillor and Receiver-General for the States of Brabant. (23)

Rubens may have been very conscious of the increasingly elevated, patrician status of his family, but did not consider it in any way demeaning to continue to bridge the private world of family life and the public domain of commissioned works by using his family as models for the latter. In view of the loan of the portrait to the National Gallery of Scotland it is particularly fitting that Frans re-appears in the foreground of Rubens's painting of the Feast of Herod (Figs. 3 and 5), which was purchased by the Gallery in 1958. (24) This monumental picture is first recorded in about 1640 in the collection of Gaspar Roomer, a wealthy Flemish merchant resident in Naples. Frans appears quite recognisable because of his high forehead, and perhaps adopts the role of a servant or young jester, with a monkey and tambourine. Once again he directly looks out of the picture at his father and the viewer--and is the only figure in this complex narrative to do so. He may also be depicted again in close proximity to his mother, because Salome is possibly based on Helena.

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His inclusion could have a bearing on the question of the dating of the painting, as Frans appears slightly older in this context than he does in the Sutherland drawing (Figs. 4 and 5), and so was perhaps depicted in the Feast in 1637-38. As it has been variously dated between 1632 (25) and 1638, (26) his presence probably therefore pushes a date of execution (at least for that section of the painting) into the latter part of this date range. (27) It should be borne in mind, however, that the genesis of such a large work could have been spread over a number of years. A further complicating factor in estimating the qualities and date of this painting is the level of studio involvement it features, which has been a matter of protracted debate. (28)

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In addition to the interest of the Sutherland drawing's relationship with other depictions of Frans, its journey through later collections also warrants detailed discussion, especially as it provides an effective illustration of the various ways in which Rubens's work was valued and proved influential, particularly in Britain. While still in Rubens's possession the portrait was probably kept in his cantor--a secure study or office adjacent to his studio, in which he stored his own drawings and those by other artists he had collected. (29) Precisely how it left this context may never be determined, although there are two possibilities. It could have been inherited by Helena Fourement or one of Rubens's children (understandably, it was chiefly family portraits she was interested in securing when the estate was divided up). Alternatively, the sheet may have been disposed of later, in 1657, when the bulk of Rubens's drawings were sold. The artist specified in his will of 27 May 1640, which was drawn up three days before his death, that they could be auctioned only when his youngest child reached the age of eighteen; this stipulation was made in the hope that the drawings might prove a valuable resource for one of his sons or the husband of one of his daughters if they became an artist. However, as neither Frans nor any of his brothers or brothers-in-law fulfilled such expectations, the drawings were disposed of. The auction in August 1657 raised just over 6,557 guilders. (30)

The portrait is subsequently first recorded, because of the stamp it bears at the lower left, in the collection of Peter Sylvester (d. 1718), (31) a doctor who is known to have been practising from at least 1686. Born in Bordeaux, he travelled in the Netherlands and Flanders, worked at the court of William III in London, and built an eclectic collection that included works by such artists as Giulio Clovio and Taddeo Zuccaro. (32) He was associated with a number of distinguished arbiters of taste of the day, such as Constantijn Huygens and Lord Somers, and it is conceivable that he may have acquired the Rubens portrait from one of them, or during his own travels in the Low Countries.

It then passed through the hands of three of the great artist-collectors of the eighteenth century--Paul Sandby (1725-1809), Richard Cosway (1742-1821) and Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769-1830), whose successive ownership is again signified by the clear stamps along the lower edge of the sheet. (33) This history is indicative of a broader trend, because in Britain it was perhaps above all artists who were keen to acquire Rubens's work: Lely, Thornhill, Richardson, Reynolds, Hudson, Zoffany and Rysbrack are all also recorded as having acquired drawings and paintings that were thought to be by him. (34)

Together with the portrait of Frans, Paul Sandby also owned other sketches by Rubens from the 1630s, which include the two studies of women harvesting now in the National Gallery of Scotland. (35) Sandby bequeathed his collection of old master drawings, which included a number of Italian as well as Dutch and Flemish works, (36) together with his own studies, to his son, and they were dispersed at a series of sales held at Christie's on 2, 3 and 4 May 1811; subsequent auctions were arranged in 1812, 1817 and 1824. In all of them contemporary and historical drawings were confusingly mixed up. (37)

Although Sandby's enthusiasm for Rubens is of interest, it is perhaps the connection with Cosway and Lawrence that is more compelling, because not only did they acquire Rubens's work, they also assimilated it--as to varying degrees it became a very tangible influence on their own portraits. Cosway treated Rubens as a subject of hero-worship, adopting ideas from his paintings, going on a pilgrimage to visit his studio and even dressing like him. As well as owning paintings by Rubens, Cosway acquired ninety-two drawings attributed to the artist (a high proportion in a collection that amounted to 2,500 sheets). (38) Among these the portrait of Frans appears to have enjoyed a special status, as it was the only such work in the collection to be reproduced in a print. (39)

Cosway made his collection in his London house available to connoisseurs and artists, and in 1811 Sir Thomas Lawrence visited and was deeply impressed. (40) The posthumous Cosway drawings and print sale, organised by his wife, Maria, was held at Stanley's in London on 18 February 1822; it was then that Lawrence acquired the portrait of Frans (lot 673) for fifteen shillings. (41) He subsequently had it mounted in the elegant and austere style he evolved for the presentation of his collection; the Lawrence mount survives beneath the modern one currently framing the drawing. (42)

For Lawrence, acquiring drawings was an obsessive business and he created a vast collection, in large part with the help of his friend Samuel Woodburn (1786-1853). (43) His collection is perhaps chiefly remembered for the outstanding group of Raphaels and Michelangelos that eventually passed to the Ashmolean Museum in 1845, but featured a much wider range of works, including major Flemish drawings. Although specific links between this work and his paintings cannot be forged, the type of wide-eyed, intense and slightly effeminate child it represents finds echoes in a number of his own portraits. (44)

The well-known story of the dispersal of the Lawrence collection remains one of the most shameful episodes, in terms of a lack of institutional or governmental support for the arts, in British history. (45) Lawrence died in 1830 and had specified in his will that his collection should be preserved as a whole and offered for 18,0000 [pounds sterling] successively to George IV, the trustees of the British Museum, Sir Robert Peel and the Earl of Dudley--none of whom in the event appeared enthusiastic. Attempts were then made to sell it to the nation by public subscription, but these also faltered. Eventually Woodburn acquired the collection for 16,000 [pounds sterling], stamped the drawings with a 'blind' TL mark, and set up a series of ten splendid exhibitions in London as a showcase for selling them. (46)

The first exhibition, which opened in May 1836, was devoted to one hundred works by Rubens, including drawings such as the artist's compositional study for the National Gallery's Feast of Herod. (47) The exhibition was held in the Cosomora Gallery in Regent Street and the total price for all the works on show was 3,000 [pounds sterling]. (48) They created something of a sensation: a reviewer writing in The Globe noted that all bore 'the impress of the master's hand ... Many of them indeed, are very highly finished, completely fit for the hands of engravers, and affording almost as much delight to the general spectator as ... paintings.' (49)

Admission to the exhibition cost five shillings, and a copy of the catalogue, sixpence. In the preamble to the catalogue, which was written by Woodburn, he noted that Lawrence had acquired 'Several very beautiful Drawings [by Rubens] of his family', and he listed, together with two other studies of the artist's children, the drawn portrait of Frans, which was described as follows:

   43. A SMALL HEAD--one of the
   children of Rubens, with cap and
   feather: red and black chalk.
   Size, 8 inches by 6. From the
   Collections of Mariette, Sandby,
   and Cosway. (50)

The reference to Mariette is confusing and may be based on a mistaken interpretation of the Sylvester stamp and knowledge that Mariette was renowned for having owned large numbers of Rubens's works. (51) The full description, including the Mariette reference, was written in ink on the verso of the Lawrence mount surrounding the portrait of Frans, possibly by Woodburn himself (Fig. 6).

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The portrait was acquired from the exhibition by Lord Francis Leveson-Gower (Egerton) (1800-57), who became 1st Earl of Ellesmere in 1846. An MP and Privy Councillor, he pursued a diverse range of interests as a soldier, traveller, yachtsman, author and remarkable collector. Three years before the Rubens exhibition he had inherited much of the art collection formed by his great-uncle, the 3rd Duke of Bridgewater, which famously included an outstanding group of Raphaels, Titians and Poussins bought at the sale of paintings from the collection of the Duc d'Orleans held in London in 1798. (52) The collection also featured such pictures as Rubens's Mercury bearing Psyche to Olympus, which had been acquired in Amsterdam in 1800 for the Duke, (53) and more modest works, including a fine drawing by Philips Koninck, that has recently come on to the art market again. (54)

Lord Francis Egerton enriched the family collection further, notably by buying Dutch paintings (including important works by Steen, Maes, Hobbema, Dou and Ter Botch). (55) An enthusiasm for the work of Rubens was evidently a family trait, however, as his father (Earl Gower, 2nd Marquis of Stafford and 1st Duke of Sutherland) paid 3,000 [pounds sterling] in 1803 for Rubens's Peace and War--which incidentally includes a superb group of portraits of children (of members of the Gerbier family)--and which in 1828 he presented to the then new National Gallery in London.

The drawing of Frans, as well as being indicative of a similar taste, should also be seen in the context of a larger collection of graphic art built up by Lord Francis Egerton, which primarily consisted of Italian drawings secured at subsequent Woodburn exhibitions in 1836. These included eighty Giulio Romano drawings bought for 800 [pounds sterling] at the fifth exhibition (56) and 160 Carracci drawings that were acquired for 1,500 [pounds sterling] at the sixth. (57) The Romanos were a logical addition to a collection that already included outstanding paintings by Raphael, and the Carraccis complemented the small group of baroque pictures Egerton owned. Eight of the Romanos and ninety-six of the Carracci sheets were displayed framed in various corridors in his London home, Cleveland House, the rest remaining (presumably with the Rubens) in portfolios. (58)

Among these drawings were works such as Annibale Carracci's Spazzocamino (Chimney sweep), which was bought by the National Gallery of Scotland in 1972, and which bears the same Ellesmere/Sutherland stamp as that at the lower right of the Rubens portrait (Fig. 7). (29) The largest of all the drawings Egerton acquired were the two Carracci cartoons he gave to London's National Gallery in 1837, while he was one of its trustees. (60) He also made a generous gift to the Ashmolean Museum, presenting it in 1853 with forty of his Carracci studies. (61) Finally, three years later, he contributed to the founding collection of the National Portrait Gallery in London by giving it his portrait of Shakespeare, which became its first catalogued work. (62)

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As well as being a notable benefactor and expanding the family collection, Lord Francis Egerton entrusted the curatorial care of it to the historian of Dutch and Flemish art John Smith (1781-1855), and was also responsible for commissioning an impressive new home for it. Cleveland House, which contained the 'Stafford Gallery', was re-named Bridgewater House and rebuilt for him, following the designs of Sir Charles Barry (completed 1847). Barry's scheme included a magnificent picture gallery to house the finest of his paintings. (63) From as early as 1806 the Ellesmere/ Sutherland collection could be viewed by the public on Wednesday afternoons for four months in the summer by people either known to the family or recommended by a 'person of nobility or distinction', and such access (which pre-dated the opening of the National Gallery in London by eighteen years) was continued after the redevelopment of Bridgewater House. (64)

The collections preserved there were eventually transferred to Scotland for safety at the outbreak of World War II; this proved to be a very wise precaution as their London home was badly damaged during the Blitz in 1941. It was just after the end of the war that a number of the finest paintings from the collection were first placed on long-term loan to the National Gallery of Scotland.

The collection has passed by descent to the 7th Duke of Sutherland, who has maintained the tradition of the loan, and the Rubens drawing constitutes a splendid addition to it--especially as it can in various ways be related to other works by the artist in Edinburgh. It also acts as a poignant reminder of the remarkable and now largely dispersed collection of graphic art that was built up in the 1830s by Francis Egerton, 1st Earl of Ellesmere, as a complement to the fabled Sutherland paintings.

I am grateful to Julian Brooks, Antonia Reeve, Valerie Hunter, Helen Smailes, Penelope Carter and Emilie Gordenker for help in various ways with this article.

(1) Hans Vlieghe, Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard, Part XIX, Rubens Portraits of Identified Sitters Painted in Antwerp, London and New York, 1997, no.99c, p. 98, fig. 102. The provenance of the drawing can be summarised as follows: Rubens (d. 1640; drawings sale held 1657); P. Sylvester (d. 1718); Paul Sandby (1725-1809); Richard Cosway (1740-1821); Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769-1830); Samuel Woodburn; Francis Egerton, 1st Lord Ellesmere; by descent.

(2) John Rowlands, Rubens: Drawings and Sketches, exh. cat., The British Museum, London, 1977. It was, however, included in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery's Cosway exhibition: see note 38 (below).

(3) Samuel Woodburn, The Lawrence Gallery, First Exhibition: A catalogue of One Hundred Original Drawings by Sir P.P. Rubens collected by Sir Thomas Lawrence, Late President of the Royal Academy, London, 1836, no. 43; Bridgewater House Catalogue, no. 43; Seventeenth-Century Art in Europe, exh. cat., Royal Academy, London, 1938, no. 58; A.E. Popham, 'Seventeenth-Century Art in Europe at Burlington House,' The Burlington Magazine, vol. lxxii, no. 418, (January 1938), p.19, plate IIB; Old Master Drawings, Leicester Museum and Art Gallery, exh. cat., 1952, no. 58; P.A. Tomory, The Ellesmere Collection of Old Master Drawings, Leicester Museum and Art Gallery, exh. cat., 1954, no. 107, p. 38; Edinburgh (1995), see note 38 (below).

(4) On Rubens's use of 'black' chalk, see Julius S. Held, Rubens: Selected Drawings, Oxford, 1986 (first published 1959), p. 32. Rubens favoured slightly greyish 'Steinkreide' (natural stone chalk), as opposed to oiled chalk or coal, although they were also occasionally used.

(5) A.W.F.M. Meij and Maartje de Haan, Rubens, Jordaens, Van Dyck and Their Circle: Flemish Master Drawings from the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, 2001, p, 136. This approach to drawing was not used by Van Dyck, but was adopted by a number of Rubens's other followers.

(6) A boy in a coral necklace (Nicolaas Rubens ?), c. 1519, black and red chalk heightened with white and some black ink on paper, 25 x 20.2 cm (Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna). Similar characteristics are also found on his paintings of children, such as the Head of a girl (Clara Serena Rubens ?), c. 1616. Oil on canvas on panel, 37 x 27 cm (Sammlung des Fursten von Liechtenstein, Vaduz) and Child with a bird (Philips Rubens ?), c. 1624/25, Oil on wood, 50.8 x 40.5 cm (Staatliche Museen zu Berlin).

(7) It was supported by literary authority: for example, Van Hoogstraten in his later Elevated School of the Art of Painting, Rotterdam, 1678, which included two chapters on drawing, recommended using red chalk on white paer for 'faces, hands or entire nudes from life'. See Peter Schatborn, Dutch Figure Drawings from the seventeenth century, exh. cat., Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam and National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1982, pp. 11-12 and p. 23.

(8) The Miniatura was first published in 1627-28 and revised in 1648. See Jeffrey M. Muller and Jim Murrell (ads.), Edward Norgate: Miniatura or the Art of Limning, New Haven and London, 1997, pp. 209-10, note 307.

(9) Ibid., p. 178, note 95.

(10) Ibid., p. 91.

(11) Numerous studies touch tangentially on the Rubens family; for a specific discussion of portraits of them, see R. an der Heiden, Peter Paul Rubens und die Bildnisse seiner Familie in der Alten Pinakothek, Munich, 1982. For broader discussions of representations of children in the early modern period see Jan Baptist Bedaux and Rudi Ekkart (eds.), Pride and Joy, Children's Portraits in the Netherlands 1500-1700, exh. cat., Franshalsmuseum, Haarlem, and Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp, 2000; Philippe Aries, Centuries of Childhood, translated by Robert Baldick, London, 1962; Simon Schama, The Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age, London, 1987, chapter 7, 'In the Republic of Children'; Marcia Pointon, Hanging the Head: Portraiture and Social Formation in Eighteenth century England, New Haven and London, 1993, chapter 7, 'The State of the Child'.

(12) Vlieghe, op. cit., no, 98, pp. 93-94.

(13) Ruth Saunders Magurn, The Letters of Peter Paul Rubens, Cambridge, Mass., 1955, latter 235, pp. 392-93.

(14) Vlieghe, op. cit., no. 99, pp. 95-97.

(15) Christopher White, Peter Paul Rubens: Man and Artist, New Haven and London, 1987, p. 290.

(16) Vlieghe, op. cit., no. 100. pp. 98-100.

(17) Anne-Marie Logan, 'Review of A.W.F.M. Meij with Maartje de Haan, "Rubens, Jordaens, Van Dyck and Their Circle. Flemish Master Drawings from the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen", Rotterdam, 2001', Master Drawings, vol. XLI, no. 4, Winter 2003, pp. 391-97.

(18) Vlieghe, op. cit. nos. 99b (1) and (2), pp. 97-98

(19) Held, op. cit., p. 16: 'No matter how much we may admire today the brilliance of his oil-sketches or the beauty and variety of his drawings, we ought to realise that these works were almost never produced as ends in themselves, but as preparations for the more finished products'.

(20) Ger Luijten and A.W.F.M. Meij, From Pisanello to Cezanne, Master Drawings from the Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam, exh. cat., Pierpont Morgan Library, New York; Kimball Art Museum, Fort Worth; Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio, 1990. In a discussion in this catalogue of a portrait of Helena Fourement, no. 46, a similar point is made. See also Meij and De Haan, op. cit. in n. 5 above, p. 52.

(21) Held, op. cit., p. 33. The feathered bonnet deserves comment; similar head-dresses can be found in contemporary paintings of children in which they take on the role of bourgeois and aristocratic huntsmen, See Peter C. Sutton, The Age of Rubens, exh. cat., The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1993, no. 54, pp. 380-82: Erasmus Quellinus and Jan Fyt, Portrait of a boy with two dogs, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp, no. 407, and Bedaux and Ekkart op. cit. It should be pointed out that the increasing grandeur of Rubens's family does not imply his older children were not accomplished; Albert Rubens (1614-57) became a lawyer and Secretary to the Privy Council of Brussels, and was the author of distinguished antiquarian books that were published posthumously.

(22) L.R. Lind, 'The Latin Life of Peter Paul Rubens by his Nephew Philip: A Translation,' Art Quarterly, vol. IX, 1946, pp. 37-43.

(23) Max Rooses (translated by Harold Child), Rubens, London, 1904, vol. II, p. 606.

(24) For this panting see the entry by Christopher White in Clovis Whitfield and Jane Martineau (eds.), Painting in Naples 1606-1705: From Caravaggio to Giordano, exh. cat., Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1982, no. 138, pp. 239-40. For a fuller discussion see an unpublished draft catalogue entry by Julia Lloyd Williams in the Gallery file at the National Gallery of Scotland.

(25) Michael Jaffe: letter in the Gallery files, 14 May 1958.

(26) J.S. Held, 'Rubens' Feast of Herod', The Burlington Magazine, vol. XCVI, no.613, (April 1954), p. 122.

(27) A similar proposition was made by Hugh Agnew in a letter to the National Gallery of Scotland of 21 May 1958.

(28) See the draft catalogue entry referred to in note 25.

(29) Kristin Lohse Belkin and Fiona Healy, A House of Art. Rubens as Collector, exh. cat., Rubenshuis, Antwerp, 2004, p. 59, pp. 298-99, p. 311.

(30) For discussion of the artist's will see Jeffrey M. Muller, Rubens: The Artist as Collector, Princeton, 1989, p. 79, White, op. cit. in n. 15 above, p. 296, and E. Bonnaffe, 'Documents inedits Rubens,' Gazette des Beaux-Arts, vol. VI, Paris, 1891, pp. 204-10. Rubens does not appear to have admitted the possibility that one Of his daughters might have become an artist.

(31) Frits Lugt, Les Marques de Collections de Dessins & D'Estampes, Amsterdam, 1921, p. 390, no. 2108.

(32) See James Byam Shaw, Drawings by Old Masters at Christ Church, Oxford, Oxford, 1976, nos. 129, 249, 534, 829, 866, etc.

(33) It is possible that the sheet was cut down along the lower edge, as the drawing is slightly truncated here; however, this must have occurred very early in its history and prior to the application of the earliest Of the stamps, i.e. that for the Sylvester collection.

(34) J. Wood, 'Some Early Collectors of Rubens Drawings in England,' in C. Whistler and B. Cleaver, Rubens in Oxford, exh. cat., Christ Church Picture Gallery, Oxford and Colnaghi, London, 1988, pp. 8-18. See also, Denys Sutton, 'Aspects of British Collecting: Part II, VI--Cross-Currents in Taste,' APOLLO, vol. CXVI, no. 250 (December 1982), p. 380. For the appeal of Rubens's work in the eighteenth century see also Rubenism, exh. cat., Rhode Island School of Design, 1975, which discusses in detail its impact on Reynolds and Gainsborough. A portrait drawing of Frans (after Rubens ?) now in the British Museum (no. 1895-9-15-1047), connected with the Munich painting discussed above, passed through the collections of Jonathan Richardson Senior and Thomas Hudson.

(35) Keith Andrews, Catalogue of Netherlandish Drawings in the National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh, 1985, nos. D1490 and D1500.

(36) Fourteen Dutch and Flemish and twenty-eight Italian drawings owned by Sandby are now in the collection of the National Gallery of Scotland.

(37) See Luke Herrmann, Paul and Thomas Sandby, London, 1986, pp. 65-66. For the dispersal of the Sandby collection see also, A.P. Oppe, The Drawings of Paul and Thomas Sandby in the Collection of His Majesty the King at Windsor Castle, Oxford, 1947, pp. 1-4. Sandby sketched Cosway, the next owner of the Sutherland drawing, at an auction, see ibid., no.417.3, p. 83. See also, Lugt op. cit., p. 391, no. 211.

(38) The fullest account of Richard Cosway's activities as a collector is given in Stephen Lloyd, Richard and Maria Cosway, Regency Artists of Taste and Fashion, exh. cat., Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh, 1995. The portrait of Frans Rubens was included in this exhibition as no. 207, p. 132, dated c. 1630-40, unillustrated. For Cosway's enthusiasm for Rubens see especially pp. 73, 76, 78, 81.

(39) Lloyd, op. cit. in n. 38 above, noted that the portrait of Frans was engraved in stipple by L. Schiavonetti (1765-1810) and titled Albert Rubens, and that it was the only Rubens drawing owned by Cosway to be separately engraved.

(40) Lloyd 1995, op. cit. (note 38), p.81.

(41) Ibid., p. 132. Sale noted in an annotated copy of the auction catalogue in the British Museum. At the time the portrait was misidentified as a portrait of Albert Rubens in the catalogue, following Cosway's print.

(42) Carlo James et al., Old Master Prints and Drawings: A Guide to Presentation and Conservation, Amsterdam, 1997, p. 28 (diagram 21). The drawing is currently housed in a modern mount and a (late nineteenth-century?) picture frame.

(43) For the most recent discussion of Woodburn see Simon Turner, 'Samuel Woodburn,' Print Quarterly, vol. XX. no. 2. 2003, pp.131-44, where the limited literature on his biography is outlined.

(44) Child portraits by Lawrence in which similar characteristics can be found, include works such as his William and Jacob Pattisson (The National Trust, Polesden Lacey) and Edmund and Gibbs Antrobus (private collection). See Kenneth Garlick, Sir Thomas Lawrence: A Complete Catalogue of Paintings, Oxford, 1989.

(45) For the dispersal of the Lawrence collection see especially Denys Sutton, 'Oxford and the Lawrence Collection of Drawings,' pp.VII-XXXIII in Italian Drawings from the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, exh. cat., Wildenstein, London, 1970, and William T. Whiteley, Art in England, New York, 1973, reprint, vol. II, pp. 178-80, 276-80.

(46) Sutton, op. cit. in n. 44 above, p. XII.

(47) See Colnaghi: An exhibition of Master Drawings, New York and London, 2000, no. 19.

(48) Sutton, op. cit. in n. 44 above, p. XII.

(49) Quoted in Colnaghi, op. cit., in the entry for 190.

(50) I am grateful to Julian Brooks for showing me the Ashmolean Museum's copy of this catalogue. This was owned by T.W. Jackson, who annotated his copy and noted that the Rubens drawing retained the same number when it was transferred to Bridgewater House.

(51) The Mariette sale was held in Pads in 1775-76; he owned numerous works by Rubens.

(52) J. Pomeroy, 'The Orleans collection: It's impact on the British art world,' APOLLO, vol. CXLV, no. 420 (February 1997), pp. 26-31

(53) See Aidan Weston-Lewis, Raphael: The Pursuit of Perfection, Nation Gallery of Scotland, exh. cat., Edinburgh, 1994, no. 52, pp. 106-107. Gregory Martin has in conversation with the present writer expressed reservations about the attribution of this work.

(54) See Christie's, New York, Old Master and 19th Century Drawings, 22 January 2004, lot 120, Philips Koninck, An extensive landscape with a lake in the foreground, a mill in the middle distance and a town beyond. Other Dutch works with the same provenance were sold in 1982: see Christie's sale, 10 December 1982, nos. 17-19.

(55) Julia Lloyd-Williams, Dutch Art and Scotland: A Reflection of Taste, Edinburgh, 1992, nos. 4, 17, 24, 32 and 68, He was also engaged with the London art world in other ways; for example, in 1837 he agreed to lend Turn's Bridgewater seapiece (now, private collection, on loan to the National Galley, London) and A rising gale by Willem Van der Velde the Younger (now Toledo), which it was crewed as a pendant for, to an exhibition at the British Institution: see M. Butlin, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, New Haven and London, no. 14, pp. 11-12. For the history of the Sutherland collection, see also: Aidan Weston-Lewis (ed.), The Age of Titian, Venetian Renaissance Art from Scottish Collections, exh. cat., National Gallery of Scotland, 2004, p. 55, p. 419.

(56) Catalogue of The Ellesmere Collection Part II: Drawings By Giulio Romano, Sotheby and Co., 5 December 1972.

(57) Catalogue of the Ellesmere Collection Part I: Drawings By The Carracci and other Bolognese Masters, Sotheby and Co., 5 December 1972. One other Italian drawing appears to have passed from the Ellesmere collection to the National Gallery of Scotland via a circuitous route: no. D1596, Circle of Cigoli, The sacrifice of Isaac, for which see Keith Andrews, National Gallery of Scotland, Catalogue of Italian Drawings, Cambridge, 1968, pp. 39-40, fig. 297. This sheet is inscribed on the verso: 'From the Leverson Gower Collection'. It formed part of the David Laing Collection, which passed to the Royal Scottish Academy, and was transferred to the National Gallery of Scotland in 1910.

(58) Mrs Jameson, Companion to the Most Celebrated Private Galleries of Art in London, London, 1844, pp. 85-86.

(59) Frits Lugt, Les Marques de Collections de dessins & D'Estampes, Supplement, The Hague, 1956, p. 390, no. 2710b.

(60) M. Levey, National Gallery Catalogues: 17th and 18th-century Italian Schools, London, 1971, nos. NG 178 and 148, pp. 56-59; Christopher Baker and Tom Henry, The Complete Illustrated Catalogue of the National Gallery's Collection, London, 1995, p. 98.

(61) K.T. Parker, Catalogue of the Collection of Drawings in the Ashmolean Museum, vol. II, Italian Schools, Oxford, 1956, p. XX.

(62) K.K. Yung, National portrait Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue, 1856-1979, London, 1981, p. 512.

(63) G. Waterfield (ed.), Palaces of Art, Art Galleries in Britain, 1790-1990, exh. cat., Dulwich Picture Gallery, National Gallery of Scotland, 1992, nos. E 13, pp. 142-43.

(64) For discussions of the nature of access to the collections, see D.Pearce, London Mansions, London, 1986, p. 182, and Nicholas Penny, 'Raphael and the early Victorians', in Hugo Chapman, Tom Henry and Carol Plazzotta, Raphael from Urbino to Rome, exh. cat., The National Gallery, London, 2004, p.295.

Christopher Baker is chief curator and deputy director of the National Gallery of Scotland.

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