Originally from Flanders, where he received his initial training, Jean Daret moved to Aix-en-Provence in Aix-en-Provence after his trip to Italy. Apart from a stay in Paris, during which he
academician, Daret spent his entire life in Provence, where commissions poured in. There is no doubt as to the attribution of this beautiful sheet from a prestigious provenance (it was one of the twenty or so drawings by the artist that Chennevières held): we can see in it the light handling of black stone, often applied in fine parallel hatching, that distinguishes Daret’s style. The attention paid to the hands, first quickly sketched and then painstakingly reworked, is also representative of the artist the artist, for whom the rendering of hands has always presented a challenge. The front of the drawing shows two studies of the same female figure, a saintly woman, probably the Virgin.
The reverse shows another figure, whose face and then hands – crossed – are successively detailed: rather than a Saint John, as Pierre Rosenberg and Louis-Antoine Prat had in mind, we would prefer to see a Mary Magdalene, according to Philippe de Chennevières and Jane MacAvock. In both cases, the sheet could, as Pierre Rosenberg suggested, be a study for a Deposition: however, the lack of knowledge about the painted work of Daret, many of whose pictures have been lost, means that this hypothesis cannot be confirmed at this stage.