Pen and brown ink, 178 x 154 mm. Verso: Woman holding a child, and the head of a man with a turban, pen and brown ink. Right edge torn irregularly, perhaps from a sketchbook. No watermark. Chain lines: 18–28 mm. Numbered in the lower right corner, in pen and brown ink, 1839 (Sparre). Mark of the Royal Collection (Lugt 1638).

Rembrandt seems to have kept his studies of women and children in a separate folder. An album containing 135 such studies was later owned by the painter Jan van de Capelle, according to an inventory of his estate in 1680. It is tempting to assume that Roger de Piles acquired this album.

This and the following drawing are probably two sheets from the same sketchbook, which seems to have been reused, since there are drawings of a head with a turban on the verso of this sheet, and an unfinished turban on the next. The drawings of turbans are done with a finer pen, and according to Benesch by a different hand. More likely they are earlier, and the unfinished sketchbook was reused. Another head with a turban, neglected by Benesch, was published by White. That drawing, in the British Museum, is clearly by the same hand, and the features of the face, in particular the moustache, suggest that it also represents the same model. The head is on the verso of a drawing of a standing oriental, dated to c. 1639.

Rembrandt made numerous studies of women with infants on their laps during the years around 1640, when several of his children were born and he had the opportunity to study this motif in his own home. Vogel-Köhn therefore places them in the period 1639–43, also on stylistic grounds, while Benesch preferred a slightly later date. A further echo of these studies can be found in Rembrandt’s paintings of the Madonna and Child of the mid 1640s, one of which is in the Hermitage, and another in Kassel. On the other hand, Lugt connected the Stockholm drawings with a study of a woman and child in the Louvre and dated them to 1635–40. Haverkamp-Begemann, in his review of Lugt, added two more drawings to the group and agreed with Lugt on the earlier dating.in Kassel. On the other hand, Lugt connected the Stockholm drawings with a study of a woman and child in the Louvre and dated them to 1635–40. Haverkamp-Begemann, in his review of Lugt, added two more drawings to the group and agreed with Lugt on the earlier dating. [Magnusson, Dutch Drawings no. 320]