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Creator:
George Dance, 1741–1825
Title:
Portrait of a Boy
Former Title(s):
Boy Seated
Date:
August 3, 1793
Materials & Techniques:
Graphite and watercolor on medium, slightly textured, cream wove paper
Dimensions:
Sheet: 9 5/8 x 7 1/2 inches (24.4 x 19.1 cm)
Inscription(s)/Marks/Lettering:

Inscribed in graphite, lower right: "Geo. Dance"; in graphite, lower left: "Aug st[in superscript] 3 d[in superscript] 1793."

Signed in graphite, lower right: "Geo. Dance"

Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1986.29.359
Classification:
Drawings & Watercolors
Collection:
Prints and Drawings
Subject Terms:
boy | portrait | seated | youth
Access:
Accessible by appointment in the Study Room [Request]
Note: The Study Room is open by appointment. Please visit the Study Room page on our website for more details.
Link:
https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:2000
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The distinguished architect George Dance the Younger was a prolific draftsman. Dance particularly enjoyed making portrait drawings, and on weekends, released temporarily from his onerous duties as the Clerk of Works of the City of London, he drew "profiles," as he termed them, of his family and friends. Dance regarded this activity as "a great relaxation from the severed studies and more laborious employment of my professional life," but these distinctive drawings nonetheless betray the author's occupational concerns. His chosen formula of a pencil or chalk outline, occasionally tinted with watercolor, is close to the technique used for architectural drawings of the period, and the profile view he adopted habitually for the portraits suggests analogies with an orthographic elevation. Dance may also have been influenced by the contemporary taste for silhouettes, which were often referred to as "profiles.' Dance's portraits were admired by his contemporaries, and in 1793 he embarked on a project to draw likenesses of his fellow Royal Academicians, with a view to having them engraved and published. Seventy-two of Dance's portraits, including his "Academical Heads," were etched in soft-ground by William Daniell and eventually published in two volumes (1808-14), with a dedication to the connoisseur and amateur artist Sir George Beaumont. The Center owns twenty-three of Daniell's preliminary pencil and chalk drawings for the project. The sitter of cat. 14 has not been identified.

Gillian Forrester


Wilcox, Forrester, O'Neil, Sloan. The Line of Beauty: British Drawings and Watercolors of the Eighteenth Century. Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 2001. pg. 29, cat. no. 14, N5220 M552 P38 2007 OVERSIZE (YCBA)


The distinguished architect George Dance the Younger was a prolific draftsman. Dance particularly enjoyed making portrait drawings, and on weekends, released temporarily from his onerous duties as the Clerk of Works of the City of London, he drew "profiles," as he termed them, of his family and friends. Dance regarded this activity as "a great relaxation from the severed studies and more laborious employment of my professional life," but these distinctive drawings nonetheless betray the author's occupational concerns. His chosen formula of a pencil or chalk outline, occasionally tinted with watercolor, is close to the technique used for architectural drawings of the period, and the profile view he adopted habitually for the portraits suggests analogies with an orthographic elevation. Dance may also have been influenced by the contemporary taste for silhouettes, which were often referred to as "profiles.'

Dance's portraits were admired by his contemporaries, and in 1793 he embarked on a project to draw likenesses of his fellow Royal Academicians, with a view to having them engraved and published. Seventy-two of Dance's portraits, including his "Academical Heads," were etched in soft-ground by William Daniell and eventually published in two volumes (1808-14), with a dedication to the connoisseur and amateur artist Sir George Beaumont. The Center owns twenty-three of Daniell's preliminary pencil and chalk drawings for the project. The sitter of cat. 14 has not been identified.

Gillian Forrester

Wilcox, Forrester, O'Neil, Sloan. The Line of Beauty: British Drawings and Watercolors of the Eighteenth Century. Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 2001. pg. 29 cat. no. 14

The Line of Beauty : British Drawings and Watercolors of the Eighteenth Century (Yale Center for British Art, 2001-05-19 - 2001-08-05) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition] [Exhibition Description]

English Portrait Drawings & Miniatures (Yale Center for British Art, 1979-12-05 - 1980-02-17) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

English Drawings and Watercolors from the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon (Yale University Art Gallery, 1965-04-15 - 1965-06-20) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

A loan exhibition of English drawings and watercolours from the collection of Mr and Mrs Paul Mellon of Upperville, Virginia, P. & D. Colnaghi & Co., London, 1964, no. 8, N5247.M385 L62 (YCBA) [YCBA]

An exhibition of English drawings and water colors from the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, February 18-April 1, 1962, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1962, pp. 10, 19, no. 28, pl. 28, NC228 U6 (YCBA) Copy 2 is on Mellon Shelf [YCBA]

John Baskett, English drawings and watercolors, 1550-1850, in the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon , The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, 1972, p. 35, no. 47, NC228 B37+ (YCBA) [YCBA]

Martin Hardie, Water-colour painting in Britain, B.T. Batsford, London, 1967, vol. 1, pl. 122, ND1928 .H37 1967 (LC)+ Oversize YCBA [ORBIS]

Patrick Noon, English Portrait Drawings & Miniatures, Yale Center for British Art, 1979, p. 81, no. 86, NC772 N66+ (Wall Shelf) (YCBA) [YCBA]

Painting in England 1700-1850 : collection of Mr. & Mrs. Paul Mellon : Exhibition at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, , , Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA, 1963, v.1: p. 204, no. 406, ND466 V57 v.1-2 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Scott Wilcox, Line of beauty : British drawings and watercolors of the eighteenth century, , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 2001, p. 29, no. 14, NC228 W53 2001 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Yale University Art Gallery, English drawings and watercolors from the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, April 15-June 20,1965, , New Haven, 1965, no. 8, NC228 Y34 (YCBA) [YCBA]


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