Head of a Boy

Head of a Boy from around 1680, late in or after Wautier's active period, demonstrates the type of character study at which she excelled. Such studies served both as independent works and as preparatory material for larger compositions. Wautier was among the most technically accomplished Flemish women painters of the seventeenth century, working in Brussels producing large-scale religious and mythological canvases exhibited at the court of Archduke Leopold Wilhelm. Her technique displays the ...

The boy's features are captured with direct, naturalistic observation, the warm flesh tones and lively expression rendered with confident, fluid brushwork.