FRANÇOIS JOSEPH NAVEZ

Description

Signed and dated 1862/1863, this drawing belongs to the end of Navez’s career. Although this study does not relate to a known composition, the subject and the pose of the woman are characteristic of the artist’s work. During his career, Navez executed several history paintings taken from the Old Testament in which women wear turbans. This is the case in the artist’s painting The Meeting of Isaac and Rebecca today at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and Hagar and Ishmael at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium. The motif of a woman’s head seen in profile leaning on her hands can also be found in Saint Anne, the Virgin, the Child Jesus and Saint John at the Museum of Fine Arts in Charleroi and in A Shepherd Playing Before a Group of Italian Women (location unknown).