Martin Mijtens d.y (van Meytens)

Drawings by Martin Meytens, The Younger are exremely rare. Nationalmuseum, Department of Prints and Drawings, for example, does not possess one single drawing by him. The present drawing may be related to Meytens´s doublesided erotic painting´The Nun´ from circa 1731, in which the nun is depicted wth a book in front of her (Nationalmuseum 7036). Meytens, born in Stockholm, was chiefly active on the continent. In 1721 he moved to Vienna where he was appointed courtpainter in 1731 and in 1759, Director of the Viennese Acadamy of Arts. In 1730-31 he was in Stockholm. Meytens, chiefly active as a portrait painter, was one of the most significant Austrian painters of the Baroque period, whose style, through his pupils, spread widely throughout Europe long after his death.