Mobile menu
Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665)

A study for the Rape of the Sabine Women c.1633

Slight black chalk underdrawing, pen and brown ink, brown wash | 11.6 x 8.1 cm (sheet of paper) | RCIN 911904

Your share link is...

  Close

  • A drawing of a man holding a woman off the ground, probably done from a small wax model. This is a study for a composition of the Rape of the Sabine women, two versions of which were painted by Poussin in the mid-1630s – for the duc de Créqui in 1633-34 (New York, Metropolitan Museum) and for Cardinal Aluigi Omodei shortly after (Paris, Louvre). The group is not found in exactly this form in either painting, though it does have some connection with the pair of soldier and maiden depicted in the left foreground of both compositions. But the handling of pen and wash is identical to that of RCIN 911903, and it was presumably also drawn in connection with the New York painting. The group is derived from the Hercules and Antaeus designed by Poussin for an illustrated edition of Leonardo da Vinci's Treatise on Painting.

    On the verso is a faint black chalk sketch, apparently a fragment of a reclining figure from the knees down, with the left (near) knee raised and a hand resting on that shin. It has not been possible to connect the drawing (of an unusually large scale for Poussin's preparatory sheets) with any painting.

    Provenance

    Provenance unknown with certainty, but probably Cassiano dal Pozzo (1583-1657); from whose heirs bought by Pope Clement XI, 1703; passed to his nephew, Cardinal Alessandro Albani, 1714; from whom acquired by George III, 1762.

  • Medium and techniques

    Slight black chalk underdrawing, pen and brown ink, brown wash

    Measurements

    11.6 x 8.1 cm (sheet of paper)