Attributed to Pablo Pontons

Little is known about Pablo Pontons or his style; there are very few surviving works and no critical studies of his career.  He has always been regarded as a pupil of Pedro Orrente (1580-1645), but given that Orrente died when Pontons was only fifteen years old, any teacher-pupil relationship can only have been short-lived.  For other drawings attributed to Pontons see D. Angulo & A.E. Pérez-Sánchez, A Corpus of Spanish Drawings: Valencia 1600-1700, London 1988, pp. 65-66.  Based on comparison with the published drawings attributed to him, it seems possible, but unproven, that the present work should be added to the small group of Pontons' known drawings;  in any case, early attributions such as the one inscribed on this drawing should never be casually dismissed, especially when the artist in question is no household name.