Studies of Wings

Datenot dated

Artist Matthew William Webb (British painter, c. 1851–1924)

MediumInk, graphite, and gouache mounted on paper

Dimensionscomposition: 6 1/8 × 7 7/8 in. (15.6 × 20 cm)
sheet: 9 × 11 1/4 in. (22.9 × 28.6 cm)

Credit LineF. V. du Pont Acquisition Fund and Gift of Paul R. Miles, 1992

Object number1992-71b

On View

Not on view

ClassificationsDRAWING

Label TextIt is unclear whether this drawing is by Edward Burne-Jones or his studio assistant, Matthew Webb (d. 1942), as two conflicting inscriptions are composed on the verso. Regardless of authorship, the studies of a bird wing and accompanying notes suggest the closely observed and recorded documentation of the natural world that was promoted by the critic John Ruskin in Modern Painters, where he exhorted all British painters to “go to nature in all singleness of heart…rejecting nothing, selecting nothing, scorning nothing.”