Two Studies of a Roma Woman and a Roma Boy in a Large Hat
c. 1605
Medium
Pen and black iron gall ink on tan laid paper
Dimensions
23 × 26 cm (9 1/16 × 10 1/4 in.)
Classification
pen and ink drawings
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
9505
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
Jacques De Gheyn II employed a stylized graphic language of hatching and cross-hatching to capture the individual features and garments of the figures represented here, which include a woman shown from two vantage points and a young boy. The artist used iron gall ink made from the protective growth an oak tree produces after a wasp lays its eggs inside the tree branch. The ink is deep brown and almost black in some areas. Because iron gall ink contains a high concentration of tannic acid, howeve...
About the Artist
Jacques de Gheyn, II · 1565–1629
Jacques de Gheyn II (1565–1629) was born in Antwerp into an artistic family, receiving his earliest instruction from his father, Jacob de Gheyn I, a skilled glass painter, engraver, and draftsman. In 1585, the young de Gheyn moved to Haarlem, where he spent five formative years studying under Hendrik Goltzius, one of the most celebrated engravers of the Northern Renaissance. This apprenticeship pr...