Portrait of a Woman with Pearl Earrings

Simon Vouet was the royal painter to King Louis XIII, and although his preparatory drawings have long been prized by collectors, his portrait drawings are rare, with a group of them coming to the market only in the last ten years. Depicting an as-yet-unidentified woman at the French court, this beautifully preserved example demonstrates Vouet's subtle, sophisticated use of mixed colored chalks, in which he combines the French tradition of portraiture seen in the work of François Clouet with lessons learned from Ottavio Leoni and others during Vouet's long sojourn in Italy.