Sir David Wilkie RA, Study for 'The Italian Itinerants', ca.1823.
Pen and brown ink on cream wove paper. 75 mm x 108 mm. © Photo: Royal Academy of Arts, London.
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Study for 'The Italian Itinerants', ca.1823
Sir David Wilkie RA (1785 - 1841)
RA Collection: Art
These drawings by Sir David Wilkie are all mounted in an album of studies probably put together by the artist's brother. According to the artist and Royal Academy librarian Solomon Hart 'they are a portion of a series of sketches of pictures, which he [Wilkie] from time to time sent to a brother, an officer in the Indian Army. He, it seems, used to give them to his brother-officers' children, who bedaubed them with common watercolours. Such as escaped I had the good fortune to acquire for the Academy, from a sister of some of these juvenile artists' (Alexander Brodie ed., The Reminiscences of Solomon Alexander Hart R.A., London, 1882, p.66)
Included in the album are sketches relating to some of Wilkie's best-known works including 'The Penny Wedding' (1818; Royal collection), 'The Breakfast' (1817; Private collection) and 'Chelsea Pensioners Reading the Gazette of the Battle of Waterloo' (1818-22, Apsley House).
Object details
75 mm x 108 mm
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