Jacob de Wit (Amsterdam 1695/96-1754)

A closely comparable sheet, showing Christ with head and shoulders and reversing the composition of this drawing, is in the Musée du Louvre, Paris (inv. 23.148; F. Lugt, Musée du Louvre: Inventaire Général des Dessins des Écoles du Nord: École Hollandaise, II, Paris, 1931, no. 905). De Wit made many versions of the head of Christ, and also of the Virgin (see lot 7) and Moses. At the sale of de Wit's estate on 10 March 1755 in Amsterdam there were no fewer than thirty heads each of the Virgin and Christ and nine of Moses.