Watermark: none visible through lining.
On 7 February 1715, the Persian envoy Mehmet Reza Bey and his retinue arrived in Paris to pay a visit to Louis XIV. The visit had great resonance in the city. Watteau sketched many of the members of the embassy during their six-month stay, vividly portraying their richly textured and patterned clothing in drawings of red and black chalk. He drew this slender young man with a thin mustache wearing a peaked fur-trimmed cap and cloak at least twice. A second sheet with the same man seated on a chair is in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. -- Exhibition Label, from "Drawn to Greatness: Master Drawings from the Thaw Collection"
Masson, Claire-Amélie, former owner.
Chauffard, Mme, former owner.
Thaw, Eugene Victor, former owner.
Thaw, Clare, former owner.
The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY, "Drawn to Greatness: Master Drawings from the Thaw Collection", 2017. Exh. cat., no. 396, repr.
Stampfle, Felice, and Cara D. Denison. Drawings from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Eugene V. Thaw. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1975, no. 33, repr.
Denison, Cara D. French Master Drawings in the Pierpont Morgan Library. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1993., no. 36, repr.
Denison, Cara D. et al. From Mantegna to Picasso : Drawings from the Thaw Collection at the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York. London : Royal Academy of Arts ; New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1996, no. 23, repr. in color.
Rosenberg, Pierre and Louis-Antoine Prat. Antoine Watteau 1684-1721, Catalogue raisonné des dessins, 3 vols., Milan, 1996, I, no. 284, p. 448, repr., and under no. 258, p. 448, and no. 281, p. 443-444.