Attributed to Ary de Vois

Valerius Röver, his numbering, verso: 13/88;
Johann Goll van Franckenstein, his numbering, verso: N.1388. (L.2987);
Frederik Carel Theodoor, Baron of Isendoorn à Blois (L.1407)

Unframed. There are some very small faint isolated brown spots, mainly in the lower portion. The chalk is a little rubbed, particularly in the right-hand half, but generally the condition is fine.
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Ary de Vois first trained in Utrecht with Nicolaus Knüpfer and then with Abraham van den Tempel in Leiden, where he became a member of the Guild of St. Luke in 1653.  Most of his works are history paintings, but he also made genre scenes and portraits.  In their scale and style, his paintings usually reflect the influence of the Leiden 'Fine' painters, in particular Frans van Mieris and Gerard Dou. 

The sitter in the present drawing bears a striking resemblance to the artist's painted self-portraits: at the Mauritshuis, The Hague, the Louvre, Paris,¹ and one sold at Christie's, New York, on 18 May 1995, lot 1.  There is, futhermore, a drawn self-portrait in black chalk in the Albertina, Vienna.²   Each shows the same distinctive lips, long nose and oval-shaped eyes with the rather scrutinising expression as found in this sheet.  The Albertina drawing is signed 'ADVois', although Nagler states that the artist also signed simply with his initials, as we see here.³

1. See B. Broos and A. van Suchtelen, Portraits in the Mauritshuis 1430-1790, The Hague 2004, pp. 263-5, cat. no. 60 and fig. 60c.

2. Ibid., fig. 60b

3. G.K. Nagler, Die Monogrammisten, Munich 1919, p. 246, no. 458