Sir Peter Paul Rubens’ drawing “Nude Study of a Young Man with Raised Arms” will go under the hammer by the Dutch Royal Family at Sotheby’s upcoming auction “Old Master Drawings” on January 30, 2019, in New York. “This is a drawing conceived and executed with total clarity of purpose and mastery of technique, yet also illustrates very clearly the artist’s thought processes and working method, as he developed the composition of the major altarpiece for which it is a study. The very large figure is drawn right to the edges of the sheet, which though cut in both right corners, seems otherwise to have retained its original dimensions. In figure studies from this stage of his career, Rubens often seems to have drawn with such energy and scale of vision that he ran out of space, and it is not at all uncommon for the end of a figure’s hand or foot to be missing at the edge of a sheet, and completed in a separate study beside the limb in question. Here, the twin emphases of the study are the pose and the modeling of the figure,” states the auction house while describing the details of the painting. In its description of the details of the painting the release states, “The painting is made of black chalk heightened with white; the two right corners cut; bears inscription in brown ink, on made up lower right corner: ‘Rubens.’ In 1838, Prince William of Orange, later King William II of the Netherlands, acquired the painting. It was sold in August 1850 but was ultimately bought back for the family by Brondgeest. The painting passed on to the present owners by inheritance.” “The outlines are very rapidly drawn with firm, long lines of rich chalk, the density of the lines varying very subtly as the artist applied more or less pressure as he drew. Then the volumes of the figure are sculpted with much more softly applied black chalk, seemingly stumped in many places, highlighted with understated but extremely effective touches of white. Despite the apparent assurance of the figure’s positioning, Rubens was clearly still working out the pose as he made the drawing: the figure’s left leg was initially lightly drawn, more bent, and further forward, and then positioned closer to the other leg, in the position in which it appears in the final painting. As Rubens clearly concluded, the figure would have been able to exert more upward pressure on the heavy weight above his head if his feet were closer together, so the final pose therefore communicates more clearly the effort he was making,” states Sotheby’s press release. https://www.blouinartinfo.com/ Founder: Louise Blouin
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