Description:

signed lower left: J WD. RA
pencil, pen and brown ink
327 x 385 mm

Provenance:

With Covent Garden Gallery, London;
Drue Heinz (1915 – 2018)
Her sale, Christie’s, London: 4 June 2019 [Lot 251]
Private collection, UK

Note:

This pen and ink study of a bearded man clasping a bag of coin, and a young woman in profile, represents the classical strain in James Ward’s draughtsmanship and evinces his efforts to become an historical painter. The bearded man can be compared with a second such study, formerly with Lowell Libson, which has been associated with the Apostles of Raphael’s tapestry cartoons. In the years of the Regency the tapestry cartoons were openly accessible to Academicians as a loan had been arranged between the Prince Regent and the Royal Academy. Raphael’s powerfully expressive figures likely informed the studies on both sheets.

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