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About the Artwork
George Romney drew prolifically and his vivid spontaneity is most apparent in hundreds of bold studies rendered in a highly personalized style. This preparatory drawing was for an unrealized history painting intended to decorate the chapel of King’s College, Cambridge. The simplified figure of the mourning Virgin was drawn with flowing lines and heavy ribbons of wash. Romney gave form to the mournful tone of his subject with descending lines that pool at the bottom of the composition. The Virgin’s oversized, pleading hands further emphasize the pathos of his subject.
Inscriptions
inscribed, in brown ink, at upper center: No. 118; stamped, on verso, stamp of Alfred A. de Pass [L. 108a]
Provenance
?-?: Alfred A. de Pass [1861-1953, L. 108a], London ?-1970: (Paul Drey Gallery, New York, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH) 1970-: Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Exhibition history
Year in Review: 1970. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 10-March 7, 1971). Brush Drawings. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (March 3-May 10, 1981). The Birth and Flowering of British Romantic Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (May 1-July 22, 1990). British Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art . The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 10-May 26, 2013).
Quick Overview
- Artist
- George Romney (British, 1734–1802)
- Date
- 1776
- Medium
- brown ink, pen and wash, with graphite underdrawing
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 50.1 x 29.3 cm (19 3/4 x 11 9/16 in.)
- Type
- Drawing
- Classification
- Drawing
- Department
- Drawings
- Credit line
- Dudley P. Allen Fund
- Accession no.
- 1970.338
More by George Romney in museum collections
Portrait of a Mother and Her Son (Probably Jane, Duchess of Gordon, and her Son George, First Marquess of Huntley)
George Romneyc. 1778 · Drawing
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Open-access museum record · AT-00011087
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