Study sheet with figures.

Drawing, red chalk, 17,4 x 18,8 cm, laid paper with watermark (coat of arms, Heawood: 461), unsigned (sheet sl. soiled, sm. square piece of 3 cm was cut out and remounted).

Under passe-partout.

Both the fashion of the figures as their rendering point towards a highly skilled Netherlandish artist working at the dawn of the 17th century. The sheet recalls similar study sheets with peasant figures in various poses, used in the Antwerp workshop of Jan I Brueghel. Figure studies form the largest category in the artist's drawn oeuvre. The figures in the known attributed drawings of this kind, were rarely used in finished paintings but were more likely doodled without any specific general compositions in mind. Yet Brueghel's attributed figure sketches are only drawn in pen and ink. Red chalk figures such as this one, however, were more frequently used by artists such as David II Teniers, active in the same cultural network. The verso side of the sheet contains a loose sketch of a farm house.