Head of a Woman wearing a Veil

This drawing is preparatory for the head of a figure in de la Fosse's Presentation of the Virgin (1682) now in the Musée des Augustins in Toulouse (inv. RO. 134). The painting was commissioned for the church of the Carmelites at Toulouse (destroyed during the Revolution). The child Mary's visit to the Temple is documented in several of the apocryphal gospels and in The Golden Legend. Anne and Joachim, the parents of the Virgin, brought her to the Temple so that she might dedicate herself to the service of the Lord. And although she was only three years old, she proudly climbed the steep temple steps by her own accord. This study is for the visage of the older woman standing next to the priest who receives the young Mary as she arrives at the Temple. A drawing of the composition, in reverse, is in the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm (inv. NMH2753/1863) and a study of the young Mary in colored chalks is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (inv. 1980.321).