by Tom Gurney
Tom Gurney BSc (Hons) is an art history expert with over 20 years experience
Published on June 19, 2020 / Updated on October 14, 2026
Email: tomgurney1@gmail.com / Phone: +44 7429 011000
What a drawing can tell us
Rubens drew to learn from other art, to explore a new composition, to study a model, to prepare paintings and prints, and sometimes to record a face for its own sake. His surviving sheets vary from economical lines in pen and ink to dense passages of chalk and wash. A drawing is therefore evidence of an action as well as an image: looking, selecting, revising or communicating an idea to others. Asking what the sheet was for is often more useful than asking whether it looks “finished.”
The image above is a case in point. The British Museum identifies it as Ignudo Turning to the Right, Rubens's study after Michelangelo, about 1606, inventory 1870,0813.882. The original is made in red chalk with some red wash, measuring 38.8 × 27.8 centimetres. The inherited local reproduction is grey, so it cannot convey the colour of the actual medium. Rubens examined a figure from Michelangelo's Sistine ceiling and made it the subject of a separate sheet. It is neither a portrait of a young man who sat for him nor proof that he copied Michelangelo's exact marks mechanically. The object page follows the pose and the related later counterproof in detail.
At a Glance
- Local drawing routes27
- Other painted-object routes101
- Image aboveIgnudo Turning to the Right, BM 1870,0813.882 [3]
- AttributionCheck each sheet's current collection record [1][2]
Browse all 27 Rubens drawings
Learning by copying
Copying was part of Rubens's training and remained a resource throughout his career. The Metropolitan Museum describes his earliest known works on paper as copies after prints, a practical way to study pictures he could not yet see directly. In Italy he could examine ancient sculpture and Renaissance painting at close range. Drawing a fragment of a larger work forced him to decide which relationship of limbs, drapery or movement mattered to his own study. It also built a store of visual solutions for future commissions.
The Ignudo shows this selectivity. Michelangelo's nude figures belong to the painted framework of the Sistine ceiling; Rubens isolated one twisting body. Its title, pose and source matter. “After Michelangelo” identifies the earlier artist whose design he studied, while Rubens remains the maker of the sheet. The Laocoön study makes a related kind of encounter with ancient sculpture. A copy after an earlier artwork can be both a record of observation and a new drawing shaped by the later artist's interests.
The same distinction applies to works after other painters. The Battle of Anghiari drawing concerns Leonardo's lost composition, but the surviving sheet's own authorship is qualified in its object record. Its page does not turn the lost mural into a surviving Rubens original. The drawing after Titian's Sacrifice of Abraham likewise must be read as an individual sheet with a source image and present collection. “After” describes a relationship; it does not settle the later sheet's exact technique or date without its own catalogue entry.
First ideas and compositional studies
Rubens could begin a commission with a rapid arrangement of figures in pen and brown ink, sometimes adding wash to suggest light and shade. The Met calls such early thoughts primi pensieri. A quick sheet can show the basic direction of action before details are resolved; it may preserve alternatives that disappear in a final painting. Some surviving drawings are carefully presented, however, and some paintings have no known preparatory sheet. The absence of a drawing in a museum today does not prove that Rubens worked without one.
The Rijksmuseum Entombment is a useful example of an identified sheet. The museum catalogues RP-T-1899-A-4301 as a drawing by Rubens, 1615–17, made with pen and brush in brown, 22.2 × 15.3 centimetres. The record also preserves a rejected earlier attribution to Anthony van Dyck. Those two names are not a present shared credit. They show how scholarship can change while the sheet itself remains available for study. Its lines and washes invite attention to the arrangement of Christ's body and the surrounding figures, not an assumption that the drawing must match every detail of a later painted work.
A more specialised sheet may explore only part of a larger design. The head study for the Ildefonso altarpiece concentrates on a face and gaze. Such a study can be compared with a painted figure, but the relationship must be demonstrated through pose, chronology and an object record. A familiar title or approximate resemblance is a starting hypothesis. On paper, a change of contour or heightened passage can expose the painter's search more clearly than a smooth final surface.
Drawing a model, an animal or a portrait
The Met describes a working pattern in which Rubens sometimes moved from a compositional plan to an oil sketch and then to detailed studies of figures posed in the studio. Chalk was useful for flesh, fabric and light; black, red and white could work together on coloured paper. It is a pattern, not a rule for every painting. A drawing made from a model might serve a specific figure in a commission, while another drawing might remain an independent observation or stock of motifs.
Animal sheets make the distinction vivid. The study of a seated lion has been compared with a lion in Rubens's Daniel in the Lions' Den. Its crouched body and alert turn are worth examining as drawn forms before assigning every line to a final canvas. The related group of lion studies includes different physical sheets in different collections. The British Museum-associated Seated Lion shown on the local page is not the National Gallery of Art's separate Washington lion drawing; their dimensions and records must not be merged.
Not every sheet historically labelled “Rubens” now carries an autograph attribution. The British Museum's Cows, Study for a Painting is currently catalogued to the office or studio of Rubens. The sheet's relationship to a stronger Chatsworth drawing accepted as Van Dyck and to painted cattle motifs is discussed on its page. It would mislead readers to list it without qualification among drawings personally made by Rubens. An attribution label is part of an object's present identity, not a footnote to be hidden by the inherited URL.
Portrait drawings could answer another need. The Met points to Nicolas Trigault in Chinese Costume, a record of the Jesuit missionary in distinctive dress, as a sheet not directly preparatory for a painting. Family portraits, heads for court commissions and studies of clothing also have different purposes. A sketch of a sitter's pose might precede an oil portrait; a drawing of a relative could remain a private record. The portrait of Isabella Brant and Nikolaus Rubens show why a reader should check who is depicted, which medium is used and whether a finished painted counterpart is actually documented.
Paper, chalk, ink and the colour a scan can hide
Drawings are material objects. A catalogue's “pen and brown ink” identifies a different way of making marks from black chalk, red chalk, wash or white heightening. Paper colour also changes the effect of a pale line or a dark wash. A grey photograph can make a red-chalk sheet appear to be graphite, as the Ignudo splash demonstrates. The safest route from screen to object is through the holding collection's medium description, dimensions and accession number. A file name or an older page heading can preserve a useful route, but neither is a technical description.
Some sheets have work on both sides. The Getty Last Supper study now uses the verified Getty image selected for this cluster. Its recto shows three groups of apostles, while the verso contains three sketches for Medea and her children. It is a drawing with two distinct sides, not a finished Last Supper oil painting. The old unidentified local image was retired after the object could not be securely matched. This case shows how source checks can change the image and description while the established route remains available.
Recto and verso also make a sheet's chronology more complex than a single caption can suggest. The Met's Presentation in the Temple sheet, for example, catalogues a 1611 recto and an earlier 1601–02 verso. A museum may date two sides differently because they were used at different moments. An image search often shows only one side, and an inherited title may name only the more familiar drawing. Before arguing that a sketch led directly to a painting, look for both sides, the collection's date range and the exact side to which its medium description applies. A sheet can have a working life longer than one commission.
Other apparent duplicates require care. The British Museum has a distinct later, reversed counterproof related to the right-turning Ignudo. It is inventory 1870,0813.883, not the original .882 sheet pictured here. A counterproof can transfer an image in reverse and then receive further marks; its catalogue date, size and technique belong to that later object. Distinguishing recto from verso and an original sheet from a counterproof avoids building a false chronology from similar images.
Drawings that prepared prints
Rubens's drawn designs could also pass into prints. An engraver might make a working drawing after a painting; Rubens could correct it before a plate was cut. The Met records such work around the Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence and the Garden of Love woodcuts. The finished printed impression has its own maker, technique and state. It is not automatically a drawing by Rubens, even when a Rubens painting supplied the design. The prints guide follows those roles; this directory lists the relevant sheets as drawings only when an actual local drawing object has been identified.
The path from paper to another medium could move through an oil sketch. A small painted model could be shown to a patron or used to organise work in a large studio. It is not a drawing simply because it is preparatory. The oil sketches and technique guide treats those painted objects separately. Thinking by medium helps prevent a useful phrase such as “study for” from erasing the difference between chalk on paper and oil on wood.
Authorship and survival
The Met's scholarly essay estimates about 700 surviving sheets associated with Rubens as a draughtsman. That is an approximate scholarly figure, not a count of drawings on this site, and it does not establish that every sheet ever attributed to him remains accepted. Paper is vulnerable; sheets can be lost, cut, reworked, copied or reassigned. Some survive because they remained in a studio collection rather than going to the patron of the painting they helped produce. The Met notes Rubens's interest in retaining drawings as useful studio material.
Collection records can therefore carry layered histories: an old Van Dyck attribution now rejected, an office-of-Rubens label, a drawing copied from Michelangelo, or a work whose purpose is still debated. Those labels are not interchangeable. For each local sheet, the object page states the current collection identification and explains meaningful differences among sources. A reader can then look at the marks with an appropriately precise question: what is visible, what does the record say, and what connection to another work is documented?
The process also matters when comparing drawings with reproductions. A printed impression can reverse the direction of a design; a counterproof can reverse a drawn image; a photograph can crop the paper and remove an inscription or old mount. Such changes are not trivial if the argument depends on which way a figure turns or where a studio mark lies. In the Ignudo pair, the right-turning original and left-turning counterproof have separate British Museum numbers. In the Getty Last Supper sheet, an account limited to the recto would omit the Medea sketches on the verso. Looking at the complete catalogue entry keeps these physical distinctions attached to each image.
A sequence of decisions on paper
The Metropolitan Museum's study of Rubens's works on paper[1] describes several related, but distinct, jobs for drawing. A first idea might be put down rapidly in pen and brown ink and wash. A later chalk drawing could investigate the pose, expression or anatomy of a particular figure after the whole composition had been planned. A coloured painted model might then present the design to a patron. This is a useful sequence for understanding a large commission, although the museum is explicit that Rubens did not follow it every time. A sheet's place in the process has to be established through its own date, medium and relation to other surviving objects.
The Met's exhibition account[7] makes another distinction: earlier in the Antwerp career, Rubens used compositional drawings frequently; later, small oil sketches on panel increasingly took on that task. That change does not mean he stopped drawing. Figure studies, portraits, designs for prints, and other sheets remained important. It does mean that counting drawings alone would give a distorted picture of his planning in different decades. A pen study in the 1610s and a chalk model study in the 1620s may answer different questions even if both ultimately relate to painted pictures.
One precise example is the Met's Presentation in the Temple study[3], made for the right wing of the Antwerp Descent from the Cross triptych. The museum identifies the sheet as a small pen-and-wash drawing and notes that Simeon and Anna changed positions before Rubens completed the painting. The sheet lets a reader see a decision between drawing and altarpiece, not simply admire a sketch as a miniature version of the finished wing. Its recto and verso also belong to different moments of work, so a page-level date should be read against the museum's more exact account of each side.
A newly surfaced sheet from the Italian years
Rubenshuis has announced the acquisition of a sheet from September 1607[4] whose front shows three men in traditional robes and whose back carries the draft of a letter by Rubens to Cristoforo Roncalli. The museum's object account[5] tentatively relates the men to apostles, but does not identify a completed painting made from the drawing. That restraint matters. A subject suggested by clothing and gestures is not the same thing as a documented preparatory study for a particular altarpiece.
The two sides show how broadly a drawing can illuminate an artist's work. The recto is evidence of figure invention in Italy. The verso is evidence of correspondence, with Rubens discussing a proposed portrait of Eleonora de' Medici. The sheet therefore joins artistic and social history without making one side an illustration of the other. Its reported size, about 12 × 20 centimetres, is modest; the letter draft is not a large finished document designed for public display. Rubenshuis acquired and published it in 2026, which also shows that the corpus of known drawings can change when an object emerges or is reconsidered. Counts of surviving sheets should be treated as estimates tied to a date and a definition of what is included.
Drawings kept for the workshop and later collectors
The Met reports that Rubens kept drawings close as studio resources and that his will delayed their sale until it was clear that none of his children would become an artist or marry one. That provision suggests the value he placed on the collection for a possible family artistic successor. It does not tell us that every sheet was locked away or never viewed by a collaborator. The same museum describes pupils using his figure studies when executing related paintings. Both points can be true: drawings could be protected working assets and still circulate within a workshop.
This is why a surviving sheet's later collection history matters. Some drawings were used, mounted, retouched or copied after their first purpose. An image seen on a modern museum site may include later marks, a changed mount or a historical attribution that has been revised. The Getty's workshop study of four male heads[6] is assigned to Rubens's workshop, rather than to Rubens himself, although it follows an autograph type. A familiar composition can therefore survive through a studio copy and still be valuable evidence of how forms circulated. The collection's precise attribution should travel with the image instead of being dropped because the subject looks convincingly Rubensian.
Browse the drawing routes
The directory below contains 27 locally checked routes classified as drawings. It includes copies after earlier art, compositional and figure studies, animal sheets and portraits, with their present attribution labels carried on individual pages. It excludes the 101 painted-object routes in the paintings guide and does not present printed impressions as drawings. The number is a description of this site's current directory, not a historical total of Rubens's drawn output.
Begin with a sheet that interests you. The Ignudo and Laocoön open the story of copying; the Entombment shows an ink composition and an attribution history; the seated lion and studio Cows show two very different animal cases; Trigault and the family portraits show drawings of people; the Getty sheet reminds us to inspect both sides. Compare medium, collection and object number before treating related images as the same physical work.
Browse Rubens drawing routes
Frequently Asked Questions
He copied earlier art, planned compositions, studied figures and animals, prepared designs for paintings or prints, and recorded particular people. A sheet's function should be inferred from its own evidence; not every drawing led to a known finished painting.
It is the British Museum's Ignudo Turning to the Right, 1870,0813.882, Rubens after Michelangelo, about 1606. The original is red chalk with some red wash. The inherited monochrome JPEG makes its red medium invisible.
This guide lists 27 local drawing routes classified from checked object data. The Met's estimate of about 700 surviving Rubens sheets is a separate, approximate scholarly figure and should not be confused with the size of this site directory.
No. Some are currently assigned to his studio, some are after earlier artists, and some have changed attribution over time. The British Museum's Cows sheet is labelled to Rubens's office, while the Rijksmuseum's Entombment is currently Rubens with an earlier Van Dyck attribution recorded as rejected.
An oil sketch is a painted object, even if it helps plan a larger work. Drawings here use media such as chalk, ink and wash on paper. The material distinction helps identify separate stages of a commission.
Discussion
Which drawing made you look more closely at its material or purpose?
Share an object record or reliable source if it clarifies a date or attribution.
Reader Insights
How does a copy after earlier art differ from a study made from a model?
Which sheet's attribution history changes how you read it?
Which recto and verso would you compare?
Join the Conversation
Add a specific observation or source below.
References
- Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rubens and Van Dyck works on paper. View source
- Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rubens drawings exhibition. View source
- Metropolitan Museum of Art, Presentation in the Temple drawing. View source
- Rubenshuis, 2026 acquisition of the 1607 drawing and letter draft. View source
- Rubenshuis, object record for the three men and letter draft. View source
- Getty Museum, workshop Four Studies of a Male Head. View source
- Metropolitan Museum of Art, Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640): The Drawings. View source
- Michiel Plomp, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rubens and Van Dyck: Works on Paper. View source
- British Museum, Ignudo Turning to the Right , 1870,0813.882. View source
- British Museum, related Ignudo Turning to the Left counterproof, 1870,0813.883. View source
- Vatican Museums, Sistine Chapel ceiling. View source
- Rijksmuseum, Graflegging / Entombment , RP-T-1899-A-4301. View source
- National Gallery of Art, Daniel in the Lions' Den. View source
- British Museum, Cows, Study for a Painting , 1895,0915.1046. View source
- J. Paul Getty Museum, Three Groups of Apostles in a Last Supper , 84.GA.959. View source
