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| attributed to Joseph Wright of Derby Portrait Study of an Unknown Man ca. 1751-57 drawing Tate Gallery |
"Previously thought to be a seventeenth-century portrait sketch, this drawing is now attributed to Joseph Wright of Derby. Recent analysis of the paper has shown that it dates from the period c. 1747-57, making the earlier identification impossible. It is now believed to be a studio drawing executed by Wright while a student in the London studio of the portrait painter Thomas Hudson. It is probably a copy made after either a print or a painting by the seventeenth-century artist Sir Peter Lely. Copying the work of past masters was a recognised student exercise, and Hudson had a large collection of paintings, drawings and prints for Wright to make use of."
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| Joseph Wright of Derby Inside the Arcade of the Colosseum ca. 1774-75 drawing Tate Gallery |
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| Joseph Mallord William Turner Study of a Cast of the Bacchus of Sansovino ca. 1791 drawing Tate Gallery |
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| Joseph Mallord William Turner Study of the Lower Half of an Ascending Figure after James Nevay's drawing after Michelangelo's fresco of the Last Judgement ca. 1793 drawing Tate Gallery |
"This study is copied from a drawing in black and white chalks on buff paper by the Scottish artist James Nevay after Michelangelo's Last Judgement in the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican in Rome. Nevay's drawing is dated 1772, and was given by him with five other drawings after figures from the Last Judgement to the Royal Academy in 1773. The figure drawn here is to be found in the centre of the left-hand side of the composition."
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| Joseph Highmore Portrait of a Man in a Cap before 1780 drawing Tate Gallery |
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| Joseph Highmore Two studies of a Man's Head c. 1720-30 drawing Tate Gallery |
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| Joseph Highmore Two Ladies in an Interior before 1780 drawing Tate Gallery |
"The animated gestures of the two elegant ladies, both of whom wear outdoor wraps, while one carries a muff, suggest that this may illustrate a scene from a novel or a play. The setting seems to be a grand entrance hall with an elaborate Rococo doorway in the background."
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| Joseph Highmore Académie studies ca. 1712-15 drawing Tate Gallery |
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| Joseph Highmore Académie ca. 1745-50 drawing Tate Gallery |
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| Joseph Highmore Académie ca. 1745-50 drawing Tate Gallery |
"These two studies [directly above] are probably too highly finished to have been executed from the life at an academy of art, and are more likely to have been made as illustrations for an unexecuted theoretical treatise."
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| Henry Fuseli Self Portrait as a Faun ca. 1770-80 drawing Tate Gallery |
"Fuseli made this portrait of himself as a sculpted faun when he was in Italy during the 1770s. By this time he already had a reputation for studied eccentricity. As a friend in Rome noted, 'he is everything in extremes – always an original; his look is lightning, his word a thunderstorm; his jest is death, his revenge, hell. He cannot draw a single mean breath. He never draws portraits, his features are all true, yet at the same time caricature . . ."
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| Henry Fuseli Self Portrait and Anatomical Studies 1783 drawing Tate Gallery |
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| Henry Fuseli Charis Phykomené 1791 drawing Tate Gallery |
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| Richard Dalton Farnese Hercules 1742 drawing Tate Gallery |
"This drawing demonstrates the extremely fine line-work which can be achieved with red chalk. the thinness of the line suggests that Dalton used a natural red chalk, since these tended to be harder than fabricated or synthetic red chalks. Dalton would probably have fastened a stick of red chalk to a holder and kept the point sharp with a knife. The darkest areas within the figure have been made by cross-hatching and drawing closely spaced narrow lines one on top of the other."
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| Alexander Cozens In the Farnese Gardens, Rome 1746 drawing Tate Gallery |
"Alexander Cozens is best known for the treatises he wrote in which he attempted to categorise landscape types. His most famous is A New Method of Assisting the Invention in Drawing Original Compositions of Landscape (1786), where he explained how to create imaginary landscapes by using ink blots. Cozens spent two years in Italy in the 1740s. Nearly sixty watercolors and drawings have survived from his stay in Rome, as well as a sketchbook. This drawing, although depicting a specific location in the Farnese Gardens, is reminiscent of the work of the classical masters of landscape, such as Gaspard Dughet."
– quoted passages based on notes by curators at the Tate in London