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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.

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Page
1
Source index
0
Type
photo
Media ID
9427601a025bf532
Size
unknown

Document data

ID
144655
Core
obj
Type
drawing
DTO data
{
    "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": "https://clevelandart.org/art/1969.28",
    "rights": "CC0",
    "rightsUri": "CC0",
    "language": "en",
    "wikidata": [
        "Q79922116"
    ],
    "creators": [
        1307
    ],
    "genreSpecific": [
        "Drawing"
    ],
    "iiifBase": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1969.28/1969.28_web.jpg",
    "thumbnailUrl": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1969.28/1969.28_web.jpg",
    "largeImageUrl": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1969.28/1969.28_web.jpg",
    "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"
}

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Document identity
{
    "localId": "144655",
    "label": "Woman Standing among the Friars (recto) Sketches of Heads (verso, left); Two Women (verso, right)",
    "core": "obj",
    "dtoType": "drawing"
}
Document 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": "https://clevelandart.org/art/1969.28",
    "rights": "CC0",
    "rightsUri": "CC0",
    "language": "en",
    "wikidata": [
        "Q79922116"
    ],
    "creators": [
        1307
    ],
    "genreSpecific": [
        "Drawing"
    ],
    "iiifBase": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1969.28/1969.28_web.jpg",
    "thumbnailUrl": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1969.28/1969.28_web.jpg",
    "largeImageUrl": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1969.28/1969.28_web.jpg",
    "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"
}
Document 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",
            "url": "https://www.jstor.org/stable/25152307"
        },
        {
            "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",
            "url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1978/page/n214"
        },
        {
            "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"
        }
    ],
    "url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/1969.28",
    "creditline": "Dudley P. Allen Fund",
    "updatedAt": "2026-05-29 07:25:56.803000",
    "imageUrl": "https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1969.28/1969.28_print.jpg",
    "sourceId": 144655,
    "dept": "Drawings",
    "coll": "DR - British",
    "med": "graphite and gray and black wash with point of brush",
    "creatorTags": [
        "male"
    ],
    "thumbnail_url": null,
    "image_url": null
}
Page context
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