Mrs. Sarah Siddons
Medium
black chalk with extensive stump work with traces of white gouache
Dimensions
{"sheet":{"height":0.468,"width":0.353}}
Classification
Drawing
Department
Drawings
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
John L. Severance Fund
Accession Number
1976.6
Tags
About this artwork
Although Thomas Gainsborough produced about a thousand portraits in oil, the artist typically worked directly on the canvas rather than making preparatory drawings of his sitters. This study, so closely related to the artist’s finished painting of the famous actress Mrs. Sarah Siddons, is highly unusual. One scholar has hypothesized that because the portrait was not made on commission but conceived for an exhibition in his studio, Gainsborough may have had only a single sitting with the celebrat...