Study of the Head and Shoulders of a Young Girl (recto) and (below) Studies of a Draped Female Figure (verso) by John Melhuish Strudwick (1849-1937). Pencil on white paper: 10 x 13 inches, 25.2 x 32.8 centimetres. Collection of the National Gallery of Canada, accession no. 49676r and 49676v. Image courtesy of the author.
According to Hilary Morgan, this drawing probably dates from the 1870s before Strudwick developed his highly stylised and decorative characteristic drapery style. It may be an early study for the figure of Love in Love and Time (Christies London, 25th November 1988, no. 117).
Commentary by Dennis T. Lanigan
This drawing certainly predates Strudwick's fully developed Pre-Raphaelite style, as the woman's face has a square jaw line, rather than the more characteristic pointed, almost "heart-shaped" chin, seen in his mature manner. Although Hiliary Morgan [Underwood] feels that the drawing might relate to Strudwick's painting Love and Time this seems doubtful to me. It does not appear to relate to any of his known works.
Strudwick was not considered an expert draughtsman. If one looks at the drawing of the draped female figure on the verso, the drapery is not handled with the finesse of his mentor Edward Burne-Jones. Although Strudwick used drapery in abundance, he used it without the same concern for the underlying structural anatomy of the figure as is found in the work of Burne-Jones, Leighton, Poynter, and Moore, who all produced multiple drawings of the model, both nude and draped, to get that relationship correct.
Bibliography
Lanigan, Dennis T., and Douglas E. Schoenherr. A Dream of the Past. Toronto: University of Toronto Art Centre, 2000, cat. 85, 216
Lanigan, Dennis T., and Sonia Del Re. Beauty's Awakening. Drawings by the Pre-Raphaelites and Their Contemporaries from the Lanigan Collection. Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada, 2015, cat. 71, 170-71.
Morgan, Hilary, and Peter Nahum. Burne-Jones, The Pre-Raphaelites and Their Century. London: Peter Nahum, 1989. Catalogue number 158.
Note: Peter Nahum Ltd, London has most generously given its permission to use in the Victorian Web information, images, and text from its catalogues; readers should consult the website of Peter Nahum at the Leicester Galleries to obtain information about recent exhibitions and to order their catalogues. [GPL and JB]
Created 30 January 2002
Last modified (commentary and new images added) 7 October 2025