Alcibiades Interrupting the Symposium (recto); Sketches of the Baptism

A pen-and-ink sketch in brown on pale paper shows a group of heads and reclining figures crowded across the upper half of the sheet. Loose, quick lines suggest faces in profile and three-quarter view, with bodies and hands only partly defined beneath them. The ink sits over faint black chalk, giving the drawing a soft, hesitant character.

Look closer: A faint seated figure is barely drawn in the lower left corner of the sheet.

Artist

Peter Paul Rubens

Date

ca. 1601–02 (recto); ca. 1601 (verso)

Medium

Pen and brown ink, over black chalk

Source

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Size

3863 × 2846 px

Credit (appreciated, not required for public-domain works): The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Harold K. Hochschild, 1940