The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of February 3, 2023

Study for "Country Cousins"

c. 1847–48

Richard Redgrave

(British, 1804–1888)

England, 19th century

Black, red, and white chalk

Support: Thick gray wove paper

Sheet: 37.5 x 27 cm (14 3/4 x 10 5/8 in.)

Bequest of Dr. Paul J. Vignos, Jr. 2011.127

Location

not on view

Fun Fact

The subject matter of Richard Redgrave's paintings was shaped by his impoverished upbringing, the deaths of his mother and sister, and the burden of responsibility for debt-collecting for his father's precarious manufacturing business.

Description

This drawing is a study for Richard Redgrave’s oil painting Country Cousins, a modern life subject in which class conflict is played out in a domestic interior. In the painting, a rural family calls upon their wealthy relations and is met with sneering condescension. The youngest figure in the composition, a country boy in profile with downcast eyes, is the subject of this acutely observed drawing, exquisitely rendered in black and red chalk with white highlights.

Inscriptions

Inscription

inscribed, in graphite, at upper right: Save 1/1

Provenance
?-?
(Thomas Deans and Co. Tallahassee FL)
?-2011
Dr. Paul J. Vignos, Hunting Valley, OH, bequeathed to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
2011-
Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Citations
Lemonedes, Heather. British Drawings: The Cleveland Museum of Art. Exh. Cat. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2013. Mentioned: pp. 30-31, 148, no. 30; Reproduced: p. 31
Exhibition history

British Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art . The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (February 10-May 26, 2013).

Source URL: https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2011.127