id: 143148 accession number: 1967.130.b share license status: CC0 url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1967.130.b updated: 2022-10-29 14:53:40.422000 Woman and Man Playing Cards (verso), 1792. Benjamin West (American, 1738–1820). Black crayon; sheet: 32.3 x 40.7 cm (12 11/16 x 16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Dudley P. Allen Fund 1967.130.b title: Woman and Man Playing Cards (verso) title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: 1792 creation date earliest: 1787 creation date latest: 1797 current location: creditline: Dudley P. Allen Fund copyright: --- culture: America, 18th century technique: black crayon department: Drawings collection: DR - American 18th Century type: Drawing find spot: catalogue raisonne: --- CREATORS * Benjamin West (American, 1738–1820) - artist --- measurements: Sheet: 32.3 x 40.7 cm (12 11/16 x 16 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: description: light brown laid paper watermarks: inscriptions: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS title: Year in Review: 1967 opening date: 1967-11-29T05:00:00 Year in Review: 1967. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (November 29-December 31, 1967). title: American Drawings from the Permanent Collection opening date: 1998-04-19T00:00:00 American Drawings from the Permanent Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (April 19-July 12, 1998). --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS * cma 1967; cma 1990b; cma 1998.
Cleveland, Ohio: The Cleveland Museum of Art; 4/19/98 - 7/12/98. "American Drawings from the Permanent Collection." --- PROVENANCE [Sven Gahlin, Ltd.]. date: footnotes: citations: --- fun fact: Benjamin West was born into poverty in rural Pennsylvania, the youngest of ten children, but rose to become the first American artist to train in Italy and command a successful career as a history painter in England. digital description: Born in rural Pennsylvania, trained in Italy, and based in London for the entirety of his career, Benjamin West exemplifies the transatlantic character of colonial-era American art. In England, his success as a history painter propelled him to the position of court painter by 1772. West’s study of the head of a screaming man, believed to be done in preparation for a now-lost painting commissioned by King George III (1738–1820), was likely not drawn from life. It was modeled on the ideas of French artist Charles LeBrun (1619–1690), whose lectures on depicting the passions of the soul were surely known to the academic West. Working out the facial expression of terror, West emphasized the musculature of the man’s neck, jawline, and brow with thick, emphatic strokes. He employed light brown paper as a midtone and rubbed shadows beneath the man’s chin and flying hair. The purpose of the drawing is not entirely understood. In Pharaoh and His Host Lost in the Red Sea, an oil sketch West likely executed prior to Cleveland’s drawing, the dramatic twist of the pharaoh’s screaming head strongly resembles that in Cleveland’s sheet. However, a drawing in Boston believed to depict the lost painting indicates a composition quite different from West’s oil sketch, leaving the role of this crayon study in the creation of the final painting uncertain. wall description: After studying in Italy, Benjamin West achieved outstanding success in England, where he served as the second president of the Royal Academy of Arts in London and became a personal friend of King George III. West's earliest paintings were classical and restrained in spirit, but in the 1780s, influenced by the writer Edmund Burke, he became interested in producing grand, terrifying compositions of destruction and apocalypse. --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS Cleveland Museum of Art, Diane DeGrazia, and Carter E. Foster. Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art in association with Rizzoli International Publications, New York, 2000. page number: Mentioned: P. 200-201, 295, cat. no. 82 url: --- IMAGES web: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1967.130.b/1967.130.b_web.jpg print: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1967.130.b/1967.130.b_print.jpg full: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1967.130.b/1967.130.b_full.tif