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Bust-length portrait study of a young woman with a striped shawl

Circle of Joseph van Aken Flemish
ca. 1740–60
Not on view
After training in Antwerp, the young Van Aken went to London, where he specialized in painting draperies. The leading portraitists there, including Joseph Highmore, Thomas Hudson, and Allan Ramsay, often painted only a sitter's face, relying on Van Aken to finish the rest of the figure. His work became ubiquitous, to the point that the collector and writer Horace Walpole remarked wryly: "As in England almost everybody's picture is painted, so almost every painter's works were painted by Van Aken."
An assistant probably made this portrait study, but it demonstrates Van Aken's typical attention to texture using black and white chalk to describe the elements of the costume, with touches of brown ink used to refine details. The design was then overlaid with a graphite grid to allow it to be transferred accurately onto canvas.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Bust-length portrait study of a young woman with a striped shawl
  • Artist: Circle of Joseph van Aken (Flemish, Antwerp (?) ca. 1699–1749 London (active Britain))
  • Date: ca. 1740–60
  • Medium: Black and white chalk, brown ink and graphite on blue laid paper, squared in graphite
  • Dimensions: sheet: 10 x 8 13/16 in. (25.4 x 22.4 cm)
  • Classification: Drawings
  • Credit Line: Purchase, Jeffrey L. Berenson Gift, 2004
  • Object Number: 2004.518
  • Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints

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Oval, bust-length portrait study of a young man, Joseph van Aken Flemish, Black and white chalk and graphite on blue laid paper, squared in graphite
Oval, bust-length portrait study of a young man
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Cosimo II de' Medici (1590–1621), Grand Duke of Tuscany, Justus Sustermans Flemish, Oil on canvas, transferred from wood, Flemish
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Half-length portrait study of a wigged man, Joseph van Aken Flemish, Black and white chalk and graphite on blue laid paper, squared in graphite
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