A Boy seated Drawing
- Artist: Wallerant Vaillant
- Date: probably 18th century
- Medium: oil on canvas
- Museum: The National Gallery
- Collection record: The National Gallery website
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About this artwork
This is the "A Boy seated Drawing" painted by Wallerant Vaillant. The artist has set up an interesting scene in front of us - a young boy, completely absorbed in his book, while sitting near a cast of the Christ Child from Michelangelo's famous statue. But look closely at the open page of his sketchbook. What we see there doesn't match the cast at all.
Vaillant has cleverly turned our expectations around by making it seem like the cast is studying the young artist rather than the other way around. This painting might be an early copy of a work from the Louvre in Paris, which was also attributed to Vaillant, although some art historians think Jan Lievens could have been its creator as well.
As a portraitist who worked mainly with portraits of young artists drawing casts, Vaillant has repeated this theme several times in his works. The painting is an oil on canvas piece and dates back to the 18th century.
See it in person
A Boy seated Drawing hangs in The National Gallery on Trafalgar Square, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
