William Mulready, Irish, 1786-1863
Title: Drapery Study for ‘The Toyseller’
Date: 1862
Medium: Red and black chalk on paper
Dimensions:
18.9 x 21.3 cm
Signed: on verso, centre right (in black chalk): W M 26 . 4. 62
Credit Line: Presented, Douglas E. Schoenherr, 2017
Object Number: NGI.2017.11
DescriptionA hitherto unknown study for Willaim Mulready's paining 'The Toyseller', 1857-1863, (NGI.387). This drawing was done the year before he died aged seventy-six. The story of the painting's inception and evolution covers almost the entire lenght of Mulready's career as an artist. The motif of black pedlar with a child can be found in his very first genre painting, 'The Rattle', exhibited 1808, inspired by his friend David Wilkie's revival of Dutch seventeenth-century genre painting. From the beginning of his career, one of Mulready's favoured subjects was childhood. The British slave trade was outlawed in 1807, but it was only in 1834 that slaves were completely emancipated. This event may have inspired Mulready to undertake the following year two small preparatory oils on panel for 'The Toyseller'. Nothing more happended for twenty-one years, until 1857, when he resumed work on the picture. In September and October 1861, the artist made eight pen-and-ink studies of sunflowers which were used for the bottom right corner of the picture. This recently discovered drawing is a detail the folds of drapery hanging over the stone parapet on which the child stands -- the latest known study for this picture before he died, dated "26 April 1862". Subtly rendered from life in red chalk, it bears out contemporary comments about Mulready's preparatory work. The 1894 edition of the Dictionary of National biography notes hat he was 'one of the most careful and conscientious of artists, and made separate studies for every part of his pictures down to the smallest details...'Over his whole career hundreds of such modest studies must have been executed, this sketch and the sheet of sunflower studies (V&A) are the only preparatory drawings known to link directly to the NGI painting.
ProvenanceChristie's, South Kensington, London, 13 October 1993, lot 216, A Folio of Drawings, part of a group of 21 works ("with backing" since missing), bought by Abbott & Holder for £308 for the lot; sold to a Collector and since bought back; Abbott & Holder List 457, April 2016, no. 68; bought on 6 April 2016 for £125 (no. 369). On offer as a gift from Douglas Schoenherr, Ottawa (former Curator of Prints and Drawings at the National Gallery of Canada).
Inscriptionon verso, centre right (in black chalk): W M 26 . 4. 62