Woman Holding Book
Daniel Huntington
American Art
In these two drawings, Daniel Huntington worked his way toward the final composition for his painting of an ideal figure subject titled The Sketcher: A Portrait of Mlle Rosina, a Jewess. Drawing directly from a model, he experimented with variations of the pose. The margins are filled with further studies for the placement of the hands. Pose and composition were Huntington’s primary concerns in his preparatory work. In the finished painting, he significantly altered the figure’s proportions and elaborated the details of the costume. Trained in the academic method by the leading American artist Samuel F. B. Morse, Huntington remained an active proponent of traditional academic practice in his capacity as president of New York’s National Academy of Design, nineteenth-century America’s leading art school, from 1862 to 1870 and from 1877 to 1890.
MEDIUM
Graphite on paper
DATES
ca. 1839-58
DIMENSIONS
Sheet: 10 9/16 x 7 3/16 in. (26.8 x 18.3 cm)
SIGNATURE
Signed in graphite, recto, lower right: "D. H."
INSCRIPTIONS
Inscribed in graphite, recto, lower left: "From Rosina / for the Sketcher."
ACCESSION NUMBER
69.62.1
CREDIT LINE
Dick S. Ramsay Fund
CATALOGUE DESCRIPTION
Image outlined on verso.
MUSEUM LOCATION
This item is not on view
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