THE ALMOST-FORGOTTEN CENTURY
(The 18th, In Case You Forgot)
  1. Canaletto, View of a Town on a River Bank
  2. Canaletto, Landscape with a Tower
  3. Manaigo, Saint John the Baptist in a Niche
  4. Faldoni, Abraham and Melchizedek
  5. Anesi, Veduta di Villa Madama
  6. Cignaroli, The Three Marys at the Cross
  7. Tiepolo, The Holy Family Passing a Statue
  8. att. to Panfili, Design for the Title Page
  9. Piranesi, Piazza del Popolo
  10. Piranesi, The Pantheon (Exterior)
  11. Piranesi, The Piazza Navona with S. Agnese on the Right
  12. Piranesi, The Isola Tiberina with S. Bartolomeo in the Foreground
  13. Novelli, Emblem Medalion for Gaetano Vitali
  14. Volpato, Il Boschetto d’Arcadia verso la Reggia
  15. Boucher, Tête de Bourgeois Coiffé
  16. Gautier-Dagoty, François Boucher
  17. Demarteau, Jeune Fille à la Cage
  18. Fragonard, Deux Femmes sur un Nuage
  19. Gillot, La Vie des Satyrs (Set of Four)
  20. Descourtis, Paul et Virginie (Set of Six)
  21. Moyreau, La Musette
  22. Van Loo, Pierrot et Scapin
  23. LePrince, Les Pêcheurs
  24. LePrince, 2me Suite de Divers Cris de Marchands de Russie
  25. Robert, Les Soirées de Rome: Title Page
  26. Delarue, A Pagan Sacrifice
  27. Loutherbourg, Resting Peasants with Animals in a Landscape
  28. Loutherbourg, 1ére Suite de Soldats (Set of Six)
  29. Loutherbourg, 2nde Suite des Figures (Set of Six)
  30. Janinet, Deux Vuës de la Grèce (pair)
  31. Moitte, La Catéchisme
  32. Mauclair, Quand l’Hymen Dort
  33. Moreau, Les Petits Parains
  34. Norblin de la Gourdaine, Le Grand Joueur
  35. Mallet, A Couple Under a Parasol
  36. Drevet, Jacques Benigne Bossuet
  37. Earlom, A Game Market
  38. Hogarth, A Chorus of Singers
  39. MacArdell, Lady Caroline Russell
  40. Cooper, Mountainous Landscape with a Herd on the Move
  41. Pether, King Uzziah Stricken with Leprosy
  42. Runciman, Perseus and Andromeda (Large Plate)
  43. Robertson, Cowherds and Cattle by a Stand of Trees
  44. Worlidge, Bust of a Man in a Feathered Turban
  45. MacArdell, Lords John and Bernard Stuart
  46. Romney, Preliminary Study for the Painting of the Gower Family
  47. Howitt, The Fox Hunt (Set of 4)
  48. Bretherton, Concerto Spirituale
  49. Smith, The Fern Gatherers
  50. Beich, The Conversion of St. Paul
  51. Chodowiecki, The Wedding of Friderike Sophie
  52. Kauffman, Das Mädchen bei der Urne
  53. von Bemmel, The Artist by the Waterfall
  54. Glume, Portrait of the Painter Joachim Martin Falbe
  55. att. to Füger, Christ Calling Simon
  56. Wachsmuth, German Alphabet with Fantastic Figures
  57. Wocher & Janinet, The Wrestlers on the Ramparts of Bern
  58. Schouman, The Great Crested Grebe
  59. Stolker, Der Junge Mann
  60. att. to Andriessen, Sawyers by a Shed
  61. Vieira de Mattos, Seated Woman Holding a Bird, with a Nude Child
  62. Goya, Bien Tirada Está (It’s Nicely Stretched)
  63. Goya, Allá Vá Eso (There It Goes)
  64. Goya, Que Pico de Oro ! (What A Beak of Gold!)
  65. Goya, El de la Rollona (Nanny’s Boy)
  66. Goya, Francisco Goya y Lucientes, Pintor (Self Portrait)

46. George Romney
(British, 1734-1802)
Preliminary Study for the Painting of the Gower Family

(click on image to print)
Romney, Preliminary Study for the Painting of the Gower Family

Preliminary Study for the Painting of the Gower Family

Other Images:

Original drawing in brush and brown ink over touches of pencil, ca. 1776, 137 x 113 mm. on a slightly larger sheet. Romney, while his finished paintings fit comfortably among those of Reynolds, Gainsborough and other eighteenth-century British portraitists, drew in a manner akin to no one else. The present drawing, looking like a twentieth-century abstract, perhaps by someone like Max Ernst, comes into focus only when placed next to the finished work (or the print after it) and then begins to give up its secret. For that reason, we include here an image of a section of the print that relates to the drawing. The tree in the background is fairly evident, but that odd shape at the right capped with a circle will become Countess Gower holding a tambourine, and the sagging triangle in the center will be the linked hands of three of the four daughters. It is, nevertheless, a superb compositional study made, if anything, even more fascinating by the later development of modern art and it perhaps casts some explanatory light on that art.