Drawing, Study of an old man’s head by Richard Redgrave R.A., pencil, black and white chalk, Britain, 19th century

Drawing in pencil and chalk on paper of a study of an old man's head. His head is turned to the left and rendered in greater detail while the shoulders and the clothing are loosely sketched in.

Provenance: Given by the artist’s granddaughter, Dorothy Margaret Redgrave in 1932.

This donation followed an earlier gift of the artist’s drawings to the V&A by Redgrave’s wife, Rose, in 1889.

This drawing came to the museum as part of a set of 126 drawings originally mounted and bound in an album. The drawings were grouped together and carefully arranged in order to show every aspect of his draughtsmanship. The album was later dismantled prior to the V&A’s 1988 exhibition, Richard Redgrave 1804-1888 (16 March to 22 May 1988), which toured to the Yale Centre for British Art (14 June to 7 August 1988).

The dismantled album has been retained but the pages in the album are loose. Each page is numbered in pencil in the top right-hand corner probably given by the museum at the time of accession. Some of the pages have been cut and removed from the album. The original placement of each drawing is indicated by border lines in ink and glue residue, along with museum objects numbers written in pencil. The complete arrangement was photographed in black and white before the drawings were removed.

For a discussion of the original album see R. Twyman-Heaven, 'Richard Redgrave the Draughtsman' in Susan P. Casteras and Ronald Parkinson (eds.), Richard Redgrave 1804–1888, exh. cat. (New Haven and London, 1988), p.33.

This drawing is a preliminary study of the head of an old man. His head is turned to the left and rendered in greater detail while the shoulders and the clothing are loosely sketched in.

The drawing was made by Richard Redgrave (1804–1888), a prominent artist during the nineteenth century who became the first curator of the South Kensington Museum (now the V&A). Redgrave sketched the head in pencil, applying black chalk to enhance the darker passages and white chalk to emphasise highlights. Redgrave often drew preparatory studies for his paintings but this figure does not relate to a specific work.

E.2186-1932