Portrait of a Man by William Etty

Portrait of a Man

William Etty

Oil on paper laid down on panel

9 3/4 x 7 1/2 inches

Provenance: T. W. Bacon, Essex, 1910

Exhibited: City of York Corporation Art Gallery, 1910 as A Man's Head

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Commentary by Rupert Maas

The seventh son of a Yorkshire baker, William Etty showed a precocious talent and was sent by a wealthy uncle to the Royal Academy Schools in London in 1806. The following year he was made a pupil of Thomas Lawrence, a great influence. He travelled widely in Italy, where he encountered the paintings of Titian and Veronese, which had an enormous impact on his work. He adopted their warm, rich colours and also the compositional rhythms of Rubens. Like his hero Titian, Etty would become a painter of great natural bravura and ambition.

His career flourished from the 1820s and his large exhibition pieces of historical and biblical subjects were based on a large number of nude studies made in the life room at the Royal Academy.

A very similar head of a man was exhibited as Head of a Cardinal at the Royal Academy in 1844, which suggests a similar date for this picture. Its rapid, painterly handling is typical of Etty at his best.

References

Maas, Rupert. British Pictures. London: The Maas Gallery. 2006. Catalogue number 42.

Last modified 11 August 2006