Two Veiled Young Women, probably Lilla Amnani and Her Sister
Medium
graphite, watercolor, red chalk on paper
Dimensions
sheet: 33 × 25.7 cm · matted: 38.1 × 29.7 cm
Classification
Drawing
Department
Drawings
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Severance and Greta Millikin Purchase Fund
Accession Number
2023.47
Tags
About this artwork
Richard Cosway was a prolific painter in London, most well-known for his portrait miniatures and drawings, which he made both on commission and as personal exercises or mementos. This drawing features two women who may be fantasized versions of the two wives of Sidi Hadji Abdurrahman Adja, a Tripolitan ambassador who visited London in 1786. A published account of the ambassador’s home life circulated around this time. Cosway may have invented the ladies as a form of novelistic intrigue when he m...