Putti in Clouds, Supporting a Globe
Jan Thomas Flemish
Former Attribution Anthony van Dyck Flemish
Not on view
Jan Thomas (also known as Jan Thomas van Yperen, or Ieperen) appears to have been a member of Rubens’s workshop in the 1630s before joining the Antwerp painter’s guild in 1639/1640 and, in the mid-1650s, leaving Flanders first for Germany and then for Vienna, where he continued his career as a history painter and portraitist. The present drawing of putti holding a globe of some kind—a common allegorical motif, usually expressive of triumph—is likely a study for a painting. Undulating contour lines of varied weight and thickness convey the fleshy but weightless bodies of the putti. Long strokes of pen and brush indicate rays of light.