Inscription ‘Henriette de/ Balzac maitresse/ d’henry 4’ (upper left)

The physiognomy of the sitter is close to another anonymous portrait by Dumonstier, more detailed and dated ‘19 May 1631’ (State Hermitage Museum, Saint-Petersburg; inv. OR-3005). She can probably be identified with Charlotte Marguerite de Montmorency, thanks to another drawing of the same woman, a copy today at Waddesdon Manor, from an album of portraits once owned by the collector Hippolyte Destailleur (D. Lecœur, Daniel Dumonstier (1574-1646), Paris, 2006, no. 247, ill). The present drawing could be the original from which this copy was made.

The handwriting in the upper left corner in pen and brown ink is the same as that on another drawing by Dumonstier, a portrait of Charles de Valois, Duke of Angoulême (Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 1 April 2020; for a copy in the Destailleur album, see Lecœur, op. cit., no. 246, ill.), even if, as on the present drawing, the identification of the sitter is mistaken. Some other drawings with the same handwriting, slightly cut along the edges and with erroneous identifications of the sitter, were recently on the market (Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 19 June 2015, lot 249; and 4 December 2008, lot 136). The presumed sitter of the present drawing was daughter of Henri I de Montmorency, and called ‘La Duchesse d’Angoulême. Prin[ces]se du sang’ on the copy from the Destailleur Album. She married Charles de Valois, Duke of Angoulême in 1591.

We are grateful to Alexandra Zvereva for her help in cataloguing this drawing.