An Album of 91 Mounted Drawings

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Mary Granville Delany , British, 1700-1788

Title

MediumInk, graphite and wash on paper

Dimensions

17.7 x 25.9 cm

Credit LinePurchased, 1920

Object numberNGI.2722

DescriptionThe hard-back, cloth bound album with vellum edging, contains 92 numbered sheets with an additional 5 unnumbered sheets at the front and 3 unnumbered sheets at the back, including marbled endpapers. The sheets numbered 1-36 and 38-86 have drawings on separate pages (mainly landscapes) pasted onto the recto. Sheets 37 and 87-91 have images drawn directly onto the sheets. Sheet 53 has an engraved portrait of Thomas Howard by Houbraken after a painting by Holbein dated 1753 pasted in. Sheet 92 is blank. At the front of the album there is a letter dated February 6 1917 from Richard Goulding, Welbeck Abbey, Nottinghamshire, to Mr Wellesley (the owner of the album) and a cutting from an undated auction catalogue describing the album. A photograph of Thomas Lawrence's chalk portrait of Mrs Delany (1786-88) is pasted into one of the blank sheets at the front of the album (This portrait is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum E.580-1929).
The next blank sheet, before numbered sheet 1, has an unfinished drawing in graphite of a rococo cartouche.