MICHEL CORNEILLE THE YOUNGER (Paris 1642-1708)

Though trained in the studio of Charles Lebrun, Corneille was mainly influenced by Pierre Mignard and, like him, enjoyed studying positions and attitudes of heads and figures on the same sheet in an attractive mise-en-page. Although it has been suggested that the heads in red chalk in the present sheet are offsets retouched with white chalk, they are more likely drawn, as those in black chalk.
Similar sheets can be found, among other collections, in the Louvre (inv. 25651) and the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, Munich (inv. 3331; for both, see P. Rosenberg, De Callot à Greuze. Dessins français des XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles des musées de Weimar, exhib. cat., Paris, Musée Jacquemart-André, 2006, p. 104, under no. 28, ill.), as well as the collection of Louis-Antoine Prat (P. Rosenberg in La Force du dessin. Chefs-d’œuvre de la collection Prat, exhib. cat., Paris, Petit Palais, 2020, no. 31, ill.).