[Paris and Oenone]. Book illustration from Library of Congress

Inscribed in ink on the tree: "ENONE."
Van Dijsel (or Van Duyselen) Collection.
Title, date, subject, and physical description devised by Diane de Grazia, 2014.
Acquisition source unknown.
Jacob de Wit's art was influenced mainly by van Dyck and Rubens, whom he copied. He was a painter of Catholic subjects, and as such had many commissions for ceiling decorations. He is well known also for mythological decorations. Paris and Oenone most likely falls into the category of finished sheets that Jacob de Wit executed as independent works for collectors of his drawings, which were popular during his lifetime. Stylistically, this sheet fits easily into de Wit's drawing oeuvre. The lost profiles of the figures, the curly-haired Cupid, and the sharply drawn drapery folds filled in with rich watercolor are seen in many of de Wit's finished sheets. Paris and Oenone relates to his other watercolors of mythological lovers found in similar outdoor settings with trees as foils that date to the 1720s and 1730s. (See Staring, figs. 92-95.) The drawing is also close to one of Apollo and Thetis dated ca. 1720 in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (inventory no. 64.197.10). It is likely that the present drawing also dates from the 1720s or 1730s. A painting by de Wit of Paris and Oenone from 1737 in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, is in a horizontal format and relates only in subject matter to this drawing (Staring, fig. 111). On Jacob de Wit see Adolph Staring, Jacob de Wit 1695-1754, Amsterdam, 1958; and J.E. P. Leistra in The Dictionary of Art, ed. Jane Turner, New York, 1996, vol. 33, pp. 261-262 (with previous bibliography).
Condition assessment: Laid down on mat that has framing lines. Drawing itself is framed in lines. Some creasing and staining. Repairs, especially lower edge and lower left, 2014.