Josef Frans Nollekens

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Josef Frans Nollekens
1702-1748
Two Women with Children at Play
Red chalk, lightly stumped, on paper; framing line in graphite.
8 7/8 x 13 9/16 inches (226 x 345 mm)
Purchased by Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913) in 1909.
III, 99
Notes: 

Watermark: illegible fragment of letter.

Inscription: 

Inscribed (signed?) at lower left, in red chalk,..."ns" (most of the word has been obliterated with a wet brush) / "in. [or "m."?] F. 1736". Inscribed on old mount, at upper right, in brown ink, "13"; at lower edge, in brown ink, crossed out in black ink, "Mercier"; below this, in another hand, in black ink, "J. Nollekens"; at left, in yet another hand, in black ink, "J. Nollekens 1736"; on verso of mount, at lower left corner, in red ink, "Lot 205".

Provenance: 
Possibly Sir Joshua Reynolds (Lugt 2364; mark is on verso of mount); Charles Fairfax Murray (1849-1919), London and Florence; from whom purchased through Galerie Alexandre Imbert, Rome, in 1909 by Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913), New York (no mark; see Lugt 1509); his son, J. P. Morgan, Jr. (1867-1943), New York.
Associated names: 

Reynolds, Joshua, Sir, 1723-1792, former owner.
Murray, Charles Fairfax, 1849-1919, former owner.
Morgan, J. Pierpont (John Pierpont), 1837-1913, former owner.

Bibliography: 

Stampfle, Felice, with the assistance of Ruth S. Kraemer and Jane Shoaf Turner. Netherlandish Drawings of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries and Flemish Drawings of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries in the Pierpont Morgan Library. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1991, p. 164, no. 342 repr.
Collection J. Pierpont Morgan : Drawings by the Old Masters Formed by C. Fairfax Murray. London : Privately printed, 1905-1912, III, 99, repr. (J.F. Nollekens; with note that signature has been erased).

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