![](https://www.themorgan.org/sites/default/files/images/collection/drawings/128310v_0001.jpg)
Watermark: none visible through lining.
The drawing is the preparatory study for van Ostade's etching of 1647, "The Family", one of the three earliest dated etchings by the artist. The later inscription relates the drawing to the 1648 etching of a similar subject.
The Library owns an impression of van Ostade's 1647 etching "The Family" in the holdings of the Morgan's Dept. of Printed Books (see PML 4350.59).
Inscribed at lower left, in black chalk, "AV(in ligature)·O·". Inscribed on the verso of the lining, at upper center, in graphite, "95"; below this, in Robinson's hand, in black ink, "Design for the etching Known as "Le Père de famille" / From the Greffier Fagel's collection / sold at (Christies) [crossed out] Phillips' / May 27-1801 / acquired from Lord Palmerston's colln ["n" in superscript] / sold by Mr. Evelyn Ashley at Christie's apl 24 1891 / the collection (sold) [crossed out] formed by the second Viscount Palmerston / 1770-1801 / JC Robinson".
Fagel, François, 1659-1746, former owner.
Fagel, Hendrik, 1706-1790, former owner.
Fagel, Hendrik, 1765-1838, former owner.
Palmerston, Henry Temple, Viscount, 1739-1802, former owner.
Palmerston, Henry John Temple, Viscount, 1784-1865, former owner.
Palmerston, Emily Lamb, Viscountess, 1787-1869, former owner.
Ashley, Evelyn, 1836-1907, former owner.
Robinson, J. C. (John Charles), Sir, 1824-1913, former owner.
Murray, Charles Fairfax, 1849-1919, former owner.
Morgan, J. Pierpont (John Pierpont), 1837-1913, former owner.
Collection J. Pierpont Morgan : Drawings by the Old Masters Formed by C. Fairfax Murray. London : Privately printed, 1905-1912, III, no. 195, repr.
Stampfle, Felice. Rubens and Rembrandt in Their Century : Flemish and Dutch Drawings of the Seventeenth Century from The Pierpont Morgan Library. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1979, 89, repr.
Jane Shoaf Turner, with contributions by Felice Stampfle, Dutch Drawings in the Pierpont Morgan Library: Seventeenth to Nineteenth Centuries, New York, 2006, cat. no. 178.