Isabella Brant after Rubens

Watteau, Jean-Antoine

Summary

A reproduction produced by the Vasari Society of a drawing by Jean-Antoine Watteau. It is a portrait of a woman wearing a blue dress and a gold necklace. This work is a copy of a drawing seen earlier in this collection of reproductions: Ruben's Portrait of Isabella Brant [Manchester City Art Gallery accession number 1932.73.20]. The copy shows more of the sitter's torso and has her looking upwards rather than out at the viewer. Also she has her left hand raised towards her chest. Text from the accompanying booklet produced by the Vasari Society: "No. 37 ANTOINE WATTEAU (b. 1684; d. 1721) ISABELLA BRANT, THE FIRST WIFE OF RUBENS, AFTER A PICTURE BY RUBENS Collection of Charles Ricketts, Esq., and C. H. Shannon, Esq., Black, red, and yellow chalk. 18.6 x 12.7 cm. (7 5/16 x 5 in.). This brilliant and hitherto almost unknown drawing supplies one of the most interesting links in the history of the early dependence of Watteau upon Rubens. The picture after which the drawing is made was at one time in the possession of the Archduke Leopold William at Brussels, and is now in that of the Duke of Norfolk (Max Rooses, 899). Watteau has translated it with extraordinary vivacity and effect in three chalks, founding his method on that of Rubens himself in some of the original drawings which must have come under his notice, and of which No. 20 in our present issue is a striking example. S. C."