Portrait Study of John Ruskin
Datec. 1857
Artist
George Richmond
(British painter and printmaker, 1809–1896)
MediumRed and black chalk on grey-blue laid watermarked paper
Dimensions7 13/16 × 6 in. (19.8 × 15.3 cm)
frame: 13 1/2 × 11 3/4 in. (34.3 × 29.8 cm)
frame: 13 1/2 × 11 3/4 in. (34.3 × 29.8 cm)
Credit LineF. V. du Pont Acquisition Fund, 2019
Object number2019-1a
On View
Not on viewCollections
ClassificationsDRAWING
Label TextThis drawing of John Ruskin, the Victorian art critic, painter, and champion of the young Pre-Raphaelites when they were being scorned by the press, was one of two studies for a portrait commissioned by the sitter’s father. George Richmond was a slightly older contemporary of the PRB members. Although he began as a landscape painter in the circle around William Blake, later in life he turned to the portrait painting, the genre that he is best known. This drawing captures the youth and ambition of Ruskin in a way that the finished portrait did not.