CMA: Drawings

Cattle, Jules Dupré, second or last third 1800s

https://clevelandart.org/art/1954.675.b

Tower of the Chimes, Old Trinity, Cleveland, Otto H. Bacher

https://clevelandart.org/art/1915.430

The River God Tiber (Study for a fresco, Miracle of the Snow, or the Foundation of Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome in the Canigiani chapel of S. Felicita, Florence), Bernardino Poccetti, 1589

Since ancient times, artists have depicted river gods as reclining bearded men, often holding or leaning on a large urn pouring water. This example, a preparatory sketch for a painting, personifies the Tiber River, which plays a role in Rome’s legendary origins. Romulus, the founder of Rome, and his twin brother, Remus, were abandoned as infants at the river, where they were rescued by a she-wolf. Poccetti lightly sketched the animal’s head behind the river god along with the face of Romulus or Remus.

https://clevelandart.org/art/2012.36

N**e Woman, Alphonse Legros

https://clevelandart.org/art/1926.484

A Herdsman with Three Cows by an Upland Pool, Thomas Gainsborough, mid 1780s

Although he was one of the most celebrated society portraitists of his day, landscape painting was Gainsborough’s love and lifelong pleasure. Here, delicate layers of watercolor, ink, oil paint, and chalk result in a jewel-like work on paper. The composition combines the rural scene of a herdsman and three cows with an imagined, majestic mountain view, mingling the pastoral with the sublime. The sheet was among a group of 14 landscape drawings that Gainsborough selected as a gift for a close friend.

https://clevelandart.org/art/2006.156

Woman at the Spinet, François Bonvin, 1860

The subject of the woman at the piano was a recurrent theme in Bonvin’s oeuvre. The pianist depicted here was likely Céline Prunaire, a 21-year-old musician who married the much older artist in 1860. Although the meticulously rendered composition celebrates the grace and propriety of the young woman, the happiness of the couple’s union was fleeting. Prunaire left the artist after fewer than three years, never to return. The pink carnation at her feet suggests a note of foreboding to the image, perhaps intended to allude to the ephemeral nature of music and sentimental bonds.

https://clevelandart.org/art/2010.166

Italian Sketchbook: Head of a Man (page 223), Maurice Prendergast, 1898-1899

https://clevelandart.org/art/1951.422.cccc

Pillaging Soldiers, Dirk Langendijk, 1794

https://clevelandart.org/art/1969.298

An Old House, Cleveland, Otto H. Bacher

https://clevelandart.org/art/1915.429

Self-Portrait, Eugène Carrière, c. 1895

https://clevelandart.org/art/2009.116

Sketchbook: Eildon Hills, Samuel Prout, 1814

John Ruskin (also in this gallery) admired Prout’s strength as a draftsman. Like the topographical watercolorists of the 18th century, Prout emphasized form over color in his watercolors, as is evident in the monochromatic, delicate English views in this sketchbook.

https://clevelandart.org/art/1954.648.e

Italian Sketchbook: Standing Woman in profile (page 130), Maurice Prendergast, 1898-1899

https://clevelandart.org/art/1951.422.ddd

The Actor Clairval, Étienne Aubry, 18th century

https://clevelandart.org/art/2008.369

Floral Design with Dog and Insects, Giacomo Cavenezia, 1774

https://clevelandart.org/art/1952.290

Album with Views of Rome and Surroundings, Landscape Studies, page 53a: "Vivaro", Franz Johann Heinrich Nadorp

https://clevelandart.org/art/1989.13.mmm

Tree on Top of a Stone Wall, Cleveland, Otto H. Bacher

https://clevelandart.org/art/1915.428

Trees and Undergrowth, Garden William Fraser, 1885

Garden’s work was based on the rendering of minute detail with painstaking brushwork and handling of color. Here, he describes an insignificant corner of the Bedford landscape: a tangled thicket in which dry grasses and saplings commingle. Bare branches stretch across a bright blue sky, creating a pattern as intricate as a spider’s web. This may have been the drawing that Garden exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1885 with the title Early Spring in the Woods. A pale green haze in the grass, the azure sky, and scattered wildflowers suggest the promise of spring.

https://clevelandart.org/art/1978.52

Verona Sketchbook: Female head with drapery (page 81), Francesco Lorenzi, 1760

https://clevelandart.org/art/1952.223.cccc