Studio of Daniel Rabel

The Library's group of eight drawings attributed to Rabel and his workshop come from a larger batch of works by the artist that were on the market in 1986. These sheets, said to be from a dismembered album or albums, emerged from a West German collection and were on the Swiss art market before being acquired by dealers Niall Hobhouse and Wheelock Whitney. Drawings from this cache, which were the subject of a catalogue by Margaret McGowan, are now in the Morgan, the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Marion Koogler McNay Museum, and the New York Public Library Dance Collection. In 2020, the Louvre acquired a group of seven designs for Louis XII's court ballets by Rabel and his workshop from a second tranche of drawings.
The provenance of the album and its history before being dismembered in 1986 is unknown. While it was rumored to have been in the collection of Hippolyte Destailleur (1822-1893), there is no evidence to confirm his ownership. Macgowan noted that the contents of the album were reorganized several times and the circumstances of its original assembly are unknown, although the album pages seem to date from the 1580s based on watermark evidence.
This design is for a porteress, or doorkeeper, in the "Ballet du Chasteau de Bissestre", first performed at the Louvre in February 1632. The ruins of the chateau of Bicetre were said to be haunted. In 1632, Louis XIII had the building razed and installed on the site a home for wounded soldiers from the many conflicts in which France was engaged. The theme celebrated the triumph of the wounded. Carrying a cane and a key and wearing widow's weeds, this porteress's costume is deliberately old-fashioned. The depiction of the scene in which the character appears contains two similarly costumed characters labeled as witches (Louvre 32673).