Old master drawings

Hello everyone, I had been trying to acquire the following 5 old master drawings that are all the same size at 3" wide by 2" high, so quite small, however very detailed as you can hopefully see. Unfortunately I was unsuccessful in acquiring but I am still interested in getting your views on them as a learning curve into old master drawings. These may well have been sketches for larger paintings, 4 are similar in subject with allegorical figures while one is slightly different. The one that looks different with what looks to be a demon or similar behind a female is something that I am near sure I have seen something similar before. I have posted photos of the 5 of them and would be interested to get your views on them as to possibly age, original origins or even possible artists
etc.

Thank you for looking and for any information / knowledge you can possibly share.

Best wishes,
P-F

 

Idle guess is late 17th or 18th C, if original. I'm not getting any sense of the paper from these photos, but for that period it should be laid.

 

look like Da Vinci preparatory drawings - or copies thereof.

 

A useful reference, if you are not familiar with it already, is a book by James Watrous: The Craft of Old Master Drawings. It discusses the techniques and materials used. As @moreotherstuff notes, learning the history of papermaking will also be important in assessing such drawings.

 

Many thanks for getting back to me and for sharing your thoughts on the drawings. That book by James Watrous I have not heard of but must check it out @toomanybooks

As the drawings are actually framed in more modern frames, it was not possible to check for watermarks in the paper.

One thing that surprised me was the size of them as they are quite small even for preparatory drawings or sketches. 3"x2" is not very big. They just intrigued me and thought I would share them with you all to get your views and opinions on them.

I can see old master drawings are a learning curve in themselves. Quite hard to date then also.

Thanks again and maybe some other information may be provided.

Best wishes,
P-F

 

cutouts from notebooks.
https://www.google.ch/search?q=noti...zCiwQ_AUoAXoECAIQAw&biw=1184&bih=527&dpr=1.62

 

Hi Fid, that would definitely make sense, should have thought of that myself.

Thanks for the reply.

Best,
P-F

 

The subject of the last one is "Pan and Syrinx".