
Public data from the Art Institute of Chicago. Learn more
Nude Youth in the Pose of the Spinario
Inscriptions
Inscribed recto, lower right, in pen and black ink: Peter Paul Rubens f[ecit] 1577 + 1640"; lower right, in graphite: "Rubens" (partially erased)
Provenance
Unidentified collector [partially erased stamp, recto, lower left]. Private collection, Sweden, by 1977 [Jaffé 1977 and Cuzin 2000 as private collection, London]; sold, Christie’s, London, July 8, 2003, lot 96, to Richard and Mary Gray, Chicago; given to the Art Institute of Chicago, 2019.
Exhibition history
New York and London, Artemis/C. G. Boerner, Old Master Drawings and Paintings, 2004, cat. 5. Art Institute of Chicago, Gray Collection: Seven Centuries of Art, Sept. 25, 2010–Jan. 2, 2011, cat. 32 (ill.). The Art Institute of Chicago, "Rubens, Rembrandt, and Drawing in the Golden Age", September 28, 2019 - January 5, 2020, pp. 100, 102 (ill.), 312-13, cat. 32, cat. by Victoria Sancho Lobis, et. al. The Art Institute of Chicago, "Pure Drawing: Seven Centuries of Art from the Gray Collection", January 25 - May 10, 2020, p. 133, GC 32, traveled to New York, The Morgan Library, February 19 - June 6, 2021, and Berkeley CA, UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, August 4 - November 28, 2021.
Publications
Michael Jaffé, Rubens and Italy (Ithaca, N.Y., 1977), pp. 73, 80, 115 n. 35, 116 n. 16; pl. 273. Anne-Marie Logan, “Rubens Exhibitions, 1977,” Master Drawings 15, no. 4 (Winter, 1977), pp. 412, under no. 14. Julius S. Held, Rubens: Selected Drawings (Oxford, 1986), p. 82, no. 39; p. 172, pl. 23. Marjon van der Muelen, Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard, vol 23, Copies after the Antique (H. Miller, 1994), vol. 1, pp. 80. Jean-Pierre Cuzin, Jean-René Gaborit, Alain Pasquier, eds., D’après l’antique, exh. cat. Musée du Louvre, 2000–01 (Paris: Réunion des Musées Nationaux, 2000), p. 419, under no. 222, pl. 222b. William O’Reilly, “Rubens: A Recently Rediscovered Drawing Inspired by the Antique,” Christie’s Magazine (June, July, August, 2003), pp. 68–69 (ill.). Adriano Aymonino and Anne Varick Lauder, Drawn from the the Antique: Artists and the Classical Ideal, exh. cat. (London: Sir John Soane’s Museum, 2015), under no. 9 (mistakenly as London, private collection).
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Peter Paul Rubens / Flemish, 1577–1640
- Date
- 1610/16
- Medium
- Black chalk, heightened with white chalk, on tan laid paper
- Dimensions
- 28 × 18.8 cm (11 1/16 × 7 7/16 in.)
- Type
- Drawing
- Classification
- drawings (visual works)
- Place
- Flanders
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Credit line
- Gift of Richard and Mary L. Gray
- Accession no.
- 2019.863
More by Peter Paul Rubens in museum collections

The Feast of Herod (recto); Tomyris with the Head of Cyrus (verso)
Peter Paul Rubensc. 1637–38 · Drawing



Data retrieved from the Art Institute of Chicago on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Open-access museum record · AT-00006030
Powered by Art Trackers