As suggested by Nel Klaversma and Michiel Jonker, the drawing likely relates to a new, presumably unrealized edition of the "Relation d'un voyarge d'Espagne" (1691) and the "Mémoires de la cour d'Espagne" (1692) by Marie Catherine Jumelle de Berneville, Comtesse d'Aunoy (1650-1705), which were published together in Dutch as the "Reyse door Spaignien, Neffens memoriem van des selfs Hof" (Utrecht, 1695). The story of the king of Spain's dwarf Louisillo is found unillustrated on pp. 332-33 of that book, which contains a title page signed by Jan Luyken and ten etched illustrations with the monogram of his son Caspar.
For the related print, matted together with the drawing, see 2020.4.
For a suggestion that the drawing should be attributed to Caspar Luyken (1672-1708), Jan's son and collaborator, see Jane Shoaf Turner, with contributions by Felice Stampfle, Dutch Drawings in the Pierpont Morgan Library: Seventeenth to Nineteenth Centuries, New York, 2006, cat. no. 137.
Inscribed on the verso, in graphite, at upper left corner, "C 10853 ["3" in superscript] dal ["dal" in subscript]; below this, "881"; further below, "Louisello een Dwergh beneevens zijn Paard nog / geen 3/4 van een fransche El hoog Ao ["o" in superscript] 1680"; and in lower left corner, "2a/330".
Watermark: Arms of Amsterdam, fragment (similar to Heawood, no. 424: 1667), rampant lions, shield, stack of three "X"s.
Illustration for (work): Thévenot, Melchisédec, 1620-1692. Relation de divers voyages et curieux. Dutch.
Murray, Charles Fairfax, 1849-1919, former owner.
Morgan, J. Pierpont (John Pierpont), 1837-1913, former owner.
Jane Shoaf Turner, with contributions by Felice Stampfle, Dutch Drawings in the Pierpont Morgan Library: Seventeenth to Nineteenth Centuries, New York, 2006, cat. no. 137.