Public data from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Learn more
Head of a Bearded Man Gazing to His Left
About the Artwork
For William Mulready, drawing was a lifelong preoccupation. This sheet was drawn from a model in the Royal Academy’s life school when the artist was 73. He was one of the Academy’s most devoted teachers, positioning the model for his students and then drawing alongside them. Closely observed and meticulously crafted, the work attests to Mulready’s consummate skill as a draftsman, and the weather-beaten face of the male model is as arresting today as it was in Victorian London.
Inscriptions
inscribed, in brown ink, at lower left: R Academy / 24 June 1859 / W.M.; inscribed, in graphite, at lower left corner: 156
Provenance
William Drummond, London 1984: (Shepherd Gallery, New York) ?-2013: Helen and Albert Borowitz, Cleveland, OH, given to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH 2013-: Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Exhibition history
British Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art . The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 10-May 26, 2013).
Quick Overview
- Artist
- William Mulready (British, 1786–1863)
- Date
- 1859
- Medium
- pen and brown ink
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 22.6 x 18.4 cm (8 7/8 x 7 1/4 in.); Secondary Support: 28.1 x 24 cm (11 1/16 x 9 7/16 in.)
- Type
- Drawing
- Classification
- Drawing
- Department
- Drawings
- Credit line
- Gift in memory of Helen Borowitz
- Accession no.
- 2013.241
More by William Mulready in museum collections
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-00011217
Powered by Art Trackers