Public collection via the Cleveland Museum of Art
AT-00011130Study for "The Peep-O’-Day Boys’ Cabin, in the West of Ireland" ("The Sleeping Whiteboy")
Also known as: Still Life with Spinning Wheel, Ladder, etc.
About the Artwork
One of the greatest draftsmen of the British school, Sir David Wilkie painted slowly but drew prolifically, making studies upon which he relied to spur his imagination and compose his paintings. In this study for a painting exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1836, the artist worked out the details of a domestic interior. Here he depicted the corner of a cabin in Ireland where wool was processed: a pair of carders used to disentangle textile fibers and a spinning wheel rest upon a rough-hewn bench, and a swath of hand-dyed red cloth is flung over a ladder rung.
Inscriptions
signed and dated, in brown ink, at lower right: DWilkie Novb 12th 1835
Provenance
?-?: Dr. Daniel A. Huebsch, Cleveland, OH ?-1941: Robert Hays Gries, Cleveland, OH, given to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH 1941-: Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Exhibition history
European Watercolors Through the 18th Century. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 14-March 22, 1964). Idea to Image: Preparatory Studies from the Renaissance to Impressionism. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (February 19-March 23, 1980). British Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art . The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 10-May 26, 2013).
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Quick Overview
- Artist
- David Wilkie (British, 1785–1841)
- Date
- 1835
- Medium
- watercolor, point of brush, and gouache with graphite and brown ink
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 23.4 x 21.9 cm (9 3/16 x 8 5/8 in.)
- Type
- Drawing
- Classification
- Drawing
- Department
- Drawings
- Credit line
- Gift of Robert Hays Gries
- Accession no.
- 1941.606
More by Sir David Wilkie in museum collections
Open-access museum record · AT-00011130
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