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1 of 253523 objects
Women winding silk c.1590
Pen and brown ink with brown and grey wash over traces of black chalk, heightened with white; indented for transfer | 17.8 x 26.9 cm (sheet of paper) | RCIN 904766
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A drawing of a large room with women working, open at the rear onto a view of a town. In the centre silkworm cocoons, kept in warm baths, are being unravelled and wound around winders; on the right a woman with a child carries a basket of cocoons, and in the background the cocooons are dried on the ground in a street with Renaissance architecture. This is a preparatory drawing for plate 6 of the series entitled Vermis Sericus. RCIN 904755, 904763-904766 are finished preparatory drawings for five of the six engravings in reverse, entitled Vermis Sericus. This is a history of the silkworm and silk-spinning, by Karel de Malle, published by Philip Galle, without date or place, and dedicated to Constantia Alamannia, wife of Raffaello de 'Medici in Florence.
Provenance
First recorded in a Royal Collection inventory of c.1810 (Inv. A, P.18: 'Strada & old Masters 73 Drawings 55 pages')
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Medium and techniques
Pen and brown ink with brown and grey wash over traces of black chalk, heightened with white; indented for transfer
Measurements
17.8 x 26.9 cm (sheet of paper)