Sketchbook with Figure and Landscape Studies

c. 1760–75

Sketchbook with Figure and Landscape Studies, c. 1760–75. François Hubert Drouais (French, 1727–1775). Drawing in black chalk, brown ink wash, graphite and red chalk on antique laid paper in bound sketchbook; overall: 19 x 12.1 cm (7 1/2 x 4 3/4 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Bequest of Muriel Butkin 2019.249 François Hubert Drouais was known primarily as a portraitist to the court of Louis XV, king of France. This sketchbook belongs to a pair in the museum’s collection that shows a more casual side of the artist’s practice. Its pages feature casual sketches including landscape, close studies of trees, children, and an artist drawing, revealing the subjects that interested the artist in his private hours. The inside cover of François Hubert Drouais’s sketchbook features a label for Au Chant de l’Alouette, the store where the artist purchased his materials.