Figure of a Woman

Prints and Drawings

c. 1776

George Romney
English, 1734-1802

This fresh and spontaneous drawing was the fruit of a new style of draftsmanship Romney adopted after returning from two years in Italy (1773–75). In Rome, he would have been introduced to Fuseli (who lived there 1770–78) and the radical style he and his circle were developing.
This sketch’s rapidly applied ink and wash, characterized by long, fluid strokes of the brush, functioned as a rehearsal for the actual physical marks Romney would employ in his paintings. Figure of a Woman was probably a study for Elizabeth Warren as Hebe (1776), the artist’s first major portrait after returning from Italy.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Prints and Drawings

Artist: George Romney
Title: Figure of a Woman
Place: England (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1776
Medium: Brush and brown ink on cream laid paper
Dimensions: 43.2 × 23.8 cm (17 1/16 × 9 3/8 in.)
Credit Line: Gift of Tiffany and Margaret Blake
Reference Number: 1944.580
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/51382/manifest.json

B. Holme, “Master Drawings” (New York, 1943), p. 15 (ill.).
The Art Institute of Chicago Annual Report (1944), p. 7 (ill.).
J. Watrous, The Craft of Old Master Drawings (Madison, 1957), p. 76 (ill.).
Alfred Frankfurter, “’Il bon disegno’ from Chicago,” Art News, 62 (November, 1963), p. 30 (ill.).

New York, Durlacher Brothers, “6th Annual Drawing Show,” 1942.
The Art Institute of Chicago, “Drawings: Old and New,” 1946, p. 23, cat. 46, pl. VIII, cat. by Carl Schniewind.
Minneapolis, Minn., The University of Minnesota Gallery, “The Eighteenth Century: One Hundred Drawings by One Hundred Artists,” 1961.
New York, Wildenstein and Company, “Master Drawings from The Art Institute of Chicago,” October 17-November 30, 1963, n.p., cat. 124, as “Lady Hamilton as Ariadne.”
The Art Institute of Chicago, “A Quarter Century of Collecting: Drawings Given to The Art Institute of Chicago, 1944-1970 by Margaret Day Blake,” April 28-June 7, 1970, n.p., cat. 24 (ill.).
The Art Institute of Chicago, “Shockingly Mad: Henry Fuseli and the Art of Drawing”, November 16, 2017 - April 1, 2018.

Dan Fellows Platt (died 1938), Englewood, NY, probably by 1932 [according to Chicago 1946; Chicago 1932]. Durlacher Brothers, New York, by 1942 [New York 1942]; sold to the Art Institute, 1944.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.