Life Boat Full of Women
Medium
Pen and brown ink, with brush and red watercolor, over traces of brown pencil, on buff wove paper, laid down on ivory wove card
Dimensions
10.9 × 28 cm (4 5/16 × 11 1/16 in.)
Classification
pen and ink drawings
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
51220
Art Historical Context
Charles Samuel Keene, a prominent 19th-century British illustrator best known for his witty contributions to *Punch* magazine, captures a tense yet poignant moment in *Life Boat Full of Women This undated pen and ink drawing, housed in the Art Institute of Chicago's Prints and Drawings department, a crowded lifeboat br with women, evoking themes of peril at sea—perhaps a shipwreck or maritime drama. Keene's observational style, influenced by Victorian Realism and French caricature, excels in rendering everyday human drama with sharp social insight, transforming a compact 10.9 × 28 cm sheet int...
About the Artist
Charles Samuel Keene
Charles Samuel Keene (1823–1891) was born on 10 August 1823 in Hornsey, Middlesex, the son of solicitor Samuel Browne Keene and Mary Sparrow. Following his father's early death, young Charles was educated at Ipswich School until age sixteen, then briefly articled to a London solicitor before transferring to the office of architect William Pilkington. Finding these pursuits uncongenial, he apprenti...