Watermark: none.
Formerly attributed to Peter Paul Rubens, Siegen, Westphalia 1577-1640 Antwerp
Long attributed to Peter Paul Rubens, this drawing has now been identified as an early work by van Dyck. It depicts Nicolas Trigault (1577-1628), a Jesuit missionary who had worked in China and returned to Europe between 1614 and 1617. It was during that time that both Rubens and van Dyck drew his portrait. Here van Dyck seems to be as interested in Trigault's Chinese robe as in his facial features. -- Exhibition Label, from "Life Lines: Portrait Drawings from Dürer to Picasso."
Inscribed at lower right, in black chalk, now barely legible, "A. Dyck". Numbered on verso of lining, at lower right, in graphite, "7 / S".
Rubens, Peter Paul, 1577-1640, Formerly attributed to.
Murray, Charles Fairfax, 1849-1919, former owner.
Morgan, J. Pierpont (John Pierpont), 1837-1913, former owner.
Tuinen, Ilona van. Power and Grace : Drawings by Rubens, Van Dyck, and Jordaens. New York : Morgan Library & Museum, 2018, page 23, fig. 12 (repr.)
Collection J. Pierpont Morgan : Drawings by the Old Masters Formed by C. Fairfax Murray. London : Privately printed, 1905-1912, III, 179 (as Van Dyck)
Stampfle, Felice, with the assistance of Ruth S. Kraemer and Jane Shoaf Turner. Netherlandish Drawings of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries and Flemish Drawings of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries in the Pierpont Morgan Library. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1991, p. 145-149, no. 310 (as Rubens)