drawing
- Museum number
- 1888,0719.77
- Description
-
A black page; two studies in the same pose, one slighter than the other, three-quarter length, standing, half-l, looking back over the left shoulder, pointing upwards with left hand.
Black chalk, touched with white, on blue-grey paper
- Production date
- 1685-1690
- Dimensions
-
Height: 281 millimetres
-
Width: 225 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- Possibly a study for the page in Kneller's portrait of 'Mary Davis' (Audley End), or for 'The Duchess of Ormond' of 1690 or for 'Marshall Schomberg' (Brocklesby Park).
Label text 2005:
Kneller came from Lübeck, and trained as an artist in Amsterdam with Ferdinand Bol. He moved to London in about 1676, where he succeeded Peter Lely as the most fashionable portraitist of the period. He worked for three successive monarchs, was knighted in 1692 and created a baronet in 1715. This drawing is one of Kneller's most spontaneous and graceful studies. It has not been connected with a specific portrait, but was perhaps an early idea for the page in the portrait of Marshal Schomberg of about 1689 at Brockelsby Park, Lincolnshire.
Stainton & White 1987
Two studies of the same pose, one of Kneller's most graceful drawings, presumably made in connection with a portrait, although no exactly similar figure appears in any of the artist's paintings. Stewart dates this drawing about 1685-90. It may perhaps have been a first idea for the page in the large equestrian portrait of 'Marshal Schomberg', about 1689 (Brocklesby Park), who appears in a similar though reversed pose.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
1987 June-Aug, BM Hilliard to Hogarth no.141
1987 Sept-Nov, New Haven, Hilliard to Hogarth
2005, 7 July-25 Sept, BM, 'Masterpieces of Portrait Drawing' (no cat.)
2011 Feb-May, BM P&D, Exploration, Slavery and Abolition: Images of Africans in the 16th to 19th Centuries
- Acquisition date
- 1888
- Acquisition notes
- The provenance of drawings that descended through the Wray family has been modified by research since the publication of ECM 1960. The wills of Edward Byng and his sister Elizabeth show that she inherited a life interest in the artists estate and that it was then divided between her sons William Wray, Robert Bateman Wray and Charles Wray. The subsequent descent through the family is not certain, but it seems that the drawings now in the BM descended from Robert Bateman Wray to his great-granddaughter, Margaret Wray, who gave them to Cecil Wray Byng Wilkins.
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1888,0719.77
