Lot 66: Pierre Brébiette (Mante-la-Jolies 1598-1642)

A seated woman, partially dressed and wearing a turban, seen half-length in profile to the right
red chalk, squared with a stylus for transfer, watermark posthorn in a crowned cartouche above I[flower]R, minor losses
8 x 6 in. (204 x 153 mm.)

Orléans, Musée des Beaux-Arts, 2001-02, Seule la peinture... Pierre Brebiette (1598?-1642), no. 7.

P. Batch Bassani, 'Brebiette, Lallemand, Vignon: feuilles inédites ou réattribuées' in Dessins français des XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles, (conference proceedings, Paris, 1999), Paris, 2003, pp. 93-4, fig. 11.

Anonymous sale; Christie's, London, 6 July 1982, lot 43a (as Italian School, 17th Century).

In reverse by the artist for the central figure in L'abcès percé (R.-A. Weigert, Inventaire du Fonds Français, Graveurs du XVII e Siècle, Paris, 1951, p. 136, no. 235; Orléans, op. cit., no. 6).

This drawing is a study for an early print, circa 1620, commonly called l'Abcès crevé showing a young mother piercing an abcess on her infant's bottom with a needle.
Brebiette arrived in Rome in 1617 at the age of 19 and quickly turned to producing prints. Before creating the mythological images that ultimately would assure his fame, the artist made several genre prints. While their subjects seem taken directly from Northern imagery and their treatment shows a knowledge of Caravaggism, the technique, handling and style of their preparatory drawings owe much to the Carracci and most of all to the Cavaliere d'Arpino.