Preparatory Study for Portrait of Dina Margareta de Bye

• Dina Margareta de Bye (1680-1740); probably by descent in her family to Baron Jules de Wyckerslooth de Rooyestein, by 1831.
• (Sale, R.W.P. de Vries, Amsterdam, 9 March 1920, no. 353, sold for 10 florins).
• L.X. Lanoy (his sale, R.W.P. de Vries, Amsterdam, 20 May 1925, no. 464).
• (Sale, Sotheby’s, London, 27 June 1974, no. 140).
• [Herbert E. Feist, New York, 1975].
• (Sale, Sotheby’s, Amsterdam, 2 November 1987, no. 96).
• (Sale, Christie’s, Amsterdam, 25 November 1991, no. 184, as attributed to Willem van Mieris).
• Private collection, Amsterdam [to Johnny Van Haeften, Ltd.].
• [Johnny Van Haeften, Ltd., London, 1993; to a private collection, Monte Carlo].
• Private collection, Monte Carlo, 1994 [to Johnny Van Haeften, Ltd.].
• [Johnny Van Haeften, Ltd., London, 2004].
• From whom received by the present owner in 2004.

• London, Richard Green Gallery, “The Cabinet Picture – Dutch and Flemish Masters of the Seventeenth Century,” 14 April–7 May 1999 [lent by a private collection, Monte Carlo].
• Poughkeepsie, New York, “Changing Forms: Metamorphosis in Myth, Art, and Nature 1650–1700,” 28 September–19 December 2021, no. 14 [lent by the present owner].

• Wright, Christopher. The Cabinet Picture: Dutch and Flemish Masters of the Seventeenth Century. Sales cat. London, Richard Green Gallery. London, 1999, 195.
• Nogrady, Elizabeth and Lara Yeager-Crasselt. Changing Forms: Metamorphosis in Myth, Art, and Nature 1650–1700. Exh. cat. Poughkeepsie, New York, The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College. Poughkeepsie, New York, 2021, 48, no. 14.
• Nogrady, Elizabeth. “Strange Changes: Early modern Scientific Imagery of Metamorphosis and Myth.” In Changing Forms: Metamorphosis in Myth, Art, and Nature 1650–1700. Edited by Elizabeth Nogrady and Lara Yeager-Crasselt, 35­–36, no. 14. Exh. cat. Poughkeepsie, New York, The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College. Poughkeepsie, New York, 2021.

The support, a sheet of off-white laid paper, has been adhered to a ragboard mount along the upper corners, the lower left corner, and center of the lower edge, although it is not possible to determine if it is adhered with hinges or directly with adhesive.

The brown ink framing line surrounding the sheet appears to have been applied prior to the composition. The design layer is executed in transparent gray washes layered in varied gradations and black ink strokes applied with a point of a brush followed by black chalk.  The black chalk has been applied in hatch marks and stumped to enrich the washes in the curtain along the background.

The drawing is signed in brown ink along the lower left quadrant, above the relief.

The drawing has not undergone conservation treatment since its acquisition and remains in an excellent state of preservation.¹