Rocznik Muzeum Narodowego w Warszawie (3(39).2014)

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Attribution and Technological Research on Old Master Paintings and Drawings

is that both sketches of cameos were made in Peiresc’s presence, who (as the rediscoverer of
Gemma Tiberiana) might have wanted to analyse them with Rubens on the spot. Could it be
possible that Rubens and Peiresc, as in the case of the cameo publication, could have planned
a cooperation which would have resulted in a print design for Recueil de plusieurs inscriptions
proposées...?
In this context, Rubens’s participation in the project of honouring Maid of Orléans need
not have been limited to his intervention with his friend Gevartius - it could have also included
preparing the illustration. We know that, as a rule, Rubens executed book illustrations in his
spare time (usually on Sundays and holidays), treating them - at least so he claimed - as an
“intellectual exercise.”90 Admittedly, if a print to be made by Rubens was planned in connection
with du Lys’s publication, and the figure of Joan was to be inspired by the sculpture from the
Orléans bridge, one might have expected more of a similarity between the two images of the
heroine.91 Moreover, the lack of precision in the background and visible changes in many parts
of the sketch might seem to contradict this hypothesis.92 The different manner of execution
of known designs for prints which are more “painterly” than other drawings by Rubens, also
speaks against such an eventuality. There, wash is used much more often than hatching, since
it was better equipped to inform the engraver about the distribution of light and shade in the
future print. It should also be added that the Warsaw drawing bears no marks of transferral of
the composition onto a different surface. However, there is one known example of a proper
design preceded by an initial, more superficial sketch,93 while in many cases engravers used the
painter’s design to prepare their own drawings, which then became the model directly traced
onto the plate.94 In my opinion, the “extraordinary” circumstances surrounding the origin of
the sketch proposed here could explain both the atypical appearance of the drawing whether
as a first draft for a painting (i.e., too detailed), or as a design for a print (i.e., too imprecise).
The Warsaw drawing could have later become a point of departure for further development.
However, the Recueil... features no composition even remotely similar to the one by Rubens.
Although it includes an image of the heroine, she is depicted in a completely different manner:
in half-figure, with a sword in her hand, wearing a dress and a hat (fig. 17).95 Like the frontis-
piece, the composition was made by Gaultier, though it is in no way similar to the figure from
the bridge in Orléans - it is modelled on a painting commissioned by the city’s councillors
c. 15 8o.96 Could it then be possible that the work under discussion is an unrealized design for
a print which came to be used as a design for a painting? It is not unlikely that the function of
the Warsaw drawing might be more ambiguous than has been thought until now.
The above pages on Joan of Arc largely leave aside stylistic or comparative questions. These mat-
ters have already been subject to debate. Doubting the originality of the drawing, Anne-Marie

90 See J. Richard Judson, Carl van de Velde, Book Illustrations and Title Pages, vol. 1 (London, 197/), p. 27.
Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard, 21.
91 E-mail from Elizabeth McGrath of 4 December 2013.
92 Ibid.
93 Judson, Van de Velde, op. cit., vol. 1, pp. 214-15, cat. no. 47a; vol. 2, figs 159,160.
94 Ibid., vol. i, pp. 27-28.
95 Du Lys, Recueil de plusieurs inscriptions proposées..., op. cit., p. n.
96 McGrath, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 321.