A woman spinning thread.

Drawing, black chalk, heightened with white, 22,5 x 15,9 cm, blue prepared paper (underlaid, some brown stains).

Under passe-partout.

A fine drawing of an old lady spinning. The parallel hatching, the drawing technique, the use of blue paper, and the subject matter all reflect the characteristics of attributed drawings by Cornelis Bega (1631-1664). A comparable sheet on blue paper is a study of a seated woman, now in the collection of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam (T-1890-A-2263), where shadows, reflections and depth are equally rendered with the combination of parallel hatching and white chalk. In both the Amsterdam drawing as well as in our sheet, the hands have been rendered with slightly less attention to detail.
Prov. Hubert Dupond (1901-1981), painter and art collector (coll. stamp at upper right: Lugt 3926).