drawing
- Museum number
- 2019,7064.1
- Title
- Series: Shipwreck drawings
- Description
-
Untitled (Shipwreck); drawing after 'Christ Asleep during the Tempest' by Eugène Delacroix (c. 1853), with figures drawn in red and black against a sea in blue and green, a black mountain in the distance. 2016
Gouache and watercolour
- Production date
- 2016
- Dimensions
-
Height: 362 millimetres
-
Width: 508 millimetres
- Curator's comments
- Delacroix painted six versions of this composition, including one at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York [Acc. no. 29.100.131], which was the original inspiration for Brown's drawing. The colouration of the work made a deep impact on Vincent Van Gogh, who wrote in a letter to Emile Bernard, 'Ah – E. DELACROIX’s beautiful painting – Christ’s boat on the sea of Gennesaret, he – with his pale lemon halo – sleeping, luminous – within the dramatic violet, dark blue, blood-red patch of the group of stunned disciples. On the terrifying emerald sea, rising, rising all the way up to the top of the frame. Ah – the brilliant sketch.' [Letter 632, Arles, Tuesday, 26 June 1888, Leo Jansen, Hans Luijten, Nienke Bakker (eds.) (2009), Vincent van Gogh - The Letters. Version: December 2010. Amsterdam & The Hague: Van Gogh Museum & Huygens ING. http://vangoghletters.org]
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
2017-18, 16 November-15 April, Manchester, Whitworth, Cecily Brown: Shipwreck drawings, illus
2018-19, 8 November-10 March, Humlebaek, Denmark, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Cecily Brown: Where, when, how often and with whom
- Acquisition date
- 2019
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 2019,7064.1
