Head of a Bearded Man Gazing to His Left

1859

Head of a Bearded Man Gazing to His Left, 1859. William Mulready (British, 1786–1863). Pen and brown ink; sheet: 22.6 x 18.4 cm (8 7/8 x 7 1/4 in.); secondary support: 28.1 x 24 cm (11 1/16 x 9 7/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift in memory of Helen Borowitz 2013.241 For William Mulready, drawing was a lifelong preoccupation. This sheet was drawn from a model in the Royal Academy’s life school when the artist was 73. He was one of the Academy’s most devoted teachers, positioning the model for his students and then drawing alongside them. Closely observed and meticulously crafted, the work attests to Mulready’s consummate skill as a draftsman, and the weather-beaten face of the male model is as arresting today as it was in Victorian London. This instantly recognizable model was the subject of at least one other drawing, titled Head of an Old Man, in the collection of Tate Britain today.