Two Studies of a Roma Woman and a Roma Boy in a Large Hat
Date:
c. 1605
Artist:
Jacques de Gheyn II Dutch, 1565-1629
About this artwork
Jacques De Gheyn II employed a stylized graphic language of hatching and cross-hatching to capture the individual features and garments of the figures represented here, which include a woman shown from two vantage points and a young boy. The artist used iron gall ink made from the protective growth an oak tree produces after a wasp lays its eggs inside the tree branch. The ink is deep brown and almost black in some areas. Because iron gall ink contains a high concentration of tannic acid, however, it dissolves paper over time. Above the right foot of the Roma woman the damaged paper was repaired.
On several occasions De Gheyn represented figures from the Roma or Romani community, itinerant members of Dutch society whose origins can be traced to northern India. Often finding shelter at the outskirts of cities, the Roma frequently took up informal trades like peddling and fortune telling.
Two Studies of a Roma Woman and a Roma Boy in a Large Hat
Place
Netherlands (Artist's nationality:)
Date
Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.
Inscribed verso, upper left, in graphite: "6" (on its side); center, in graphite: "Middleton"; lower left, in pen and brown ink: "R/PB" (in a triangle (twice)); small circle with two diagonal lines extending below; lower center, in graphite: "Jacob de Gheyn / J d G"; lower center, in pen and brown ink: "Van der Veen"
Dimensions
23 × 26 cm (9 1/16 × 10 1/4 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of Tiffany and Margaret Blake
Reference Number
1959.2
IIIF Manifest
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Harold Joachim, “Notes on Some Recently Acquired Drawings,” The Art Institute of Chicago Quarterly LIII:2 (Apr. 1959), p. 22 (ill. on cover of publication).
Alfred Frankfurter, “Il Bon Disegno from Chicago,” Art News, 62 (Nov. 1963), p.30 (ill), p. 57.
Harold Joachim, Art Institute of Chicago, A Quarter Century of Collecting: Drawings Given to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1944–1970, by Margaret Day Blake, Apr. 28–June 7, 1970, n.p., cat. 6 (ill.).
Richard Judson, The Drawings of Jacob de Gheyn (New York, 1973), vol II, p. 27, no. 105 (ill.).
I. Q. van Regteren Altena, Jacques de Gheyn, Three Generations (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1983), vol. II, p. 88, no. 535, p. 154, pl. 298.
Nathan Goldstein, The Art of Responsive Drawing, 5th ed. (Upper Saddle River, 1999), pp. 143–144 and 146, fig. 6.1.
Shelley Perlove and George S. Keyes (editors), Seventeenth-Century European Drawings in Midwestern Collections (South Bend, Ind: University of Notre Dame Press, 2014), pp. 114, fig. 2.
William W. Robinson with contributions by Susan Anderson, Drawings from the Age of Bruegel, Rubens, and Rembrandt: Highlights from the Collection of the Harvard Art Museums (Cambridge: Harvard Art Museums, 2016), under cat. 39, figure 1, p. 142.
New York, Charles Slatkin Galleries, Drawings by Old and Modern Masters, 1959, pl. VI.
New York, Wildenstein and Company, Master Drawings from The Art Institute of Chicago, Oct. 17–Nov. 30, 1963, n.p., cat. 27, pl. XI.
Poughkeepsie, N.Y., Vassar College Art Gallery, Dutch Mannerism, Apr. 15–June 7, 1970, p. 37, pl. 33, cat. 40.
Washington D.C., The National Gallery of Art, Seventeenth Century Dutch Drawings from American Collections, Jan. 30–Mar. 13, 1977; also the Denver Art Museum, Apr. 1–May 15, 1977; and Fort Worth, Tex., the Kimbell Art Museum, June 1–July 15, 1977, pp. 8–9, cat. 5 (ill.).
Rotterdam, Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Jacques de Gheyn II Drawings, 1986, p. 67, cat. 62 (ill.); also Washington, D.C., The National Gallery of Art.
Rome, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica, Palazzo Barberini, Claude Mellan: gli anni romani: un incisore tra Vouet e Bernini, Oct. 24, 1989–Jan. 8, 1990, cat. 32. [GRI L3]
Milwaukee Art Museum, Old Master Drawings from Area Collections, Apr. 18–June 29, 1997, pp. 13 and 26, pl. 12, cat. 24.
Art Institute of Chicago, The Broad Spectrum: Color on Paper, Past and Present, Sept. 12–Oct. 31, 1999, no cat.
The Art Institute of Chicago, “Rubens, Rembrandt, and Drawing in the Golden Age”, September 28, 2019 - January 5, 2020, pp. 145-46, 148 (ill.), 175, 299, cat. 46, cat. by Victoria Sancho Lobis, et. al.
Chicago, Newberry Libary, “Seeing Race Before Race”, September 8 - Decembr 30, 2023.
Anton Schmid (born 1904), Vienna [Altena 1973]. Ch. Wertheimer, Paris [Altena 1973]. Sold by Charles Slatkin Galleries, New York, to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1959.
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