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Source Description
John Brown is known for a small group of monochromatic drawings imbued with sinister overtones. At the age of 20, the Scottish artist traveled to Italy where he spent the next 12 years. This drawing exemplifies his Roman street scenes which often depict women dressed in spectacular, billowing costumes. Here, a figure with bare ankles and plunging décolletage is surrounded by a crowd of men who leer at her. The reverse of the sketchbook sheet includes two independent drawings: a study of faces in fierce and intense expressions, and a pair of women wearing swirling gowns. One figure raises her hand in a mysterious gesture, either beckoning or forewarning the viewer.
Scholar Source Context
Document identity
localId
144655
label
Woman Standing among the Friars (recto) Sketches of Heads (verso, left); Two Women (verso, right)
core
obj
dtoType
drawing
pageCount
1
Source metadata
id
144655
contentType
drawing
title
Woman Standing among the Friars (recto) Sketches of Heads (verso, left); Two Women (verso, right)
description
John Brown is known for a small group of monochromatic drawings imbued with sinister overtones. At the age of 20, the Scottish artist traveled to Italy where he spent the next 12 years. This drawing exemplifies his Roman street scenes which often depict women dressed in spectacular, billowing costumes. Here, a figure with bare ankles and plunging décolletage is surrounded by a crowd of men who leer at her. The reverse of the sketchbook sheet includes two independent drawings: a study of faces in fierce and intense expressions, and a pair of women wearing swirling gowns. One figure raises her hand in a mysterious gesture, either beckoning or forewarning the viewer.
date
c. 1770–75
citation
rights
CC0
rightsUri
CC0
language
en
wikidata
Q79922116
creators
1307
genreSpecific
Drawing
imageCount
1
source
import
dimensionsRaw
Image: 25.8 x 36.9 cm (10 3/16 x 14 1/2 in.)
cul
England, 18th century
accession
1969.28
Source extras
tec
graphite and gray and black wash with point of brush
tombstone
Woman Standing among the Friars (recto) Sketches of Heads (verso, left); Two Women (verso, right), c. 1770–75. John Brown (British, 1752–1787). Graphite and gray and black wash with point of brush; image: 25.8 x 36.9 cm (10 3/16 x 14 1/2 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Dudley P. Allen Fund, 1969.28
collection
DR - British
didYouKnow
John Brown meant for the dark background of this drawing to evoke the potential danger of Italian nights; the writer Johann Joachim Winckelmann had been murdered in Trieste in 1768, in the most conspicuous example of the period's widespread violence.
citations
citation
Todd, Ruthven. <em>Tracks in the Snow. </em>London: Grey Walls Press, 1946.
page_number
Mentioned: pp. 87-88
citation
<em>Chefs-d'oeuvre des collections Parisiennes.</em> Exh. Cat. Paris: Musée Carnavalet, 1950.
page_number
Mentioned and reproduced: p. 45, no. 92
citation
Powell, Nicholas. "Brown and the Women of Rome." <em>Signature: A Quadrimestrial of Typography and Graphic Arts,</em> no. 14 (1952).
page_number
Mentioned: p. 42; Reproduced: facing page
citation
Lee, Sherman E.. "The Year in Review for 1969." <em>The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art </em>57, no. 1 (January 1970): 2-50.
page_number
Reproduced: p.19, no. 157; Mentioned: p. 48, no. 157
citation
The Cleveland Museum of Art. <em>Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978</em>. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978.
page_number
Reproduced: p. 194
citation
<em>Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century British Watercolours and Drawings</em>. London: Sotheby's,1981.
page_number
Mentioned: p. 66, under no. 73
citation
Calvini, Anna Ottani. "Inglesi in Italia nel secolo XVIII: Benjamin West, James Barry, John Brown, John Flaxman." In <em>Pittori europei in Italia: Pittori italiani in Europa. </em>Milan: Edizioni Angelo Guerinie Associati, 1990.
page_number
Mentioned: pp. 59-81, 76, no. 9; Reproduced: p. 76, no. 9
citation
Upstone, Robert. <em>Sketchbooks of the Romantics</em>. Secaucus, NJ: Wellfleet Press, 1991.
page_number
Mentioned and reproduced: pp. 174-75
citation
Craske, Matthew. <em>Art in Europe, 1700-1830: A History of the Visual Arts in an Era of Unprecedented Urban Economic Growth</em>. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.
page_number
Mentioned and reproduced: p. 256, no. 117
citation
Macmillan, Duncan. <em>Scottish Art, 1460-2000</em>. Edinburgh: Mainstream Pub, 2000.
page_number
Mentioned and reproduced: p. 128, no. 103
citation
Bowron, Edgar Peters and Joseph J. Rishel. <em>Art in Rome in the Eighteenth Century</em>. Exh. Cat. Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2000.
page_number
Mentioned and reproduced: p. 480, no. 323
creditline
Dudley P. Allen Fund
updatedAt
2026-05-29 07:25:56.803000
sourceId
144655
dept
Drawings
coll
DR - British
med
graphite and gray and black wash with point of brush
creatorTags
male
thumbnail_url
image_url
Single page context
seq
1
pageIndex
0
type
photo
mediaId
9427601a025bf532