Red and black chalk on grey-blue paper, 31.2 by 18 cm

Provenance: Henry Yates Thompson (1838-1928); By descent to Sir Christopher Chancellor C.M.G. (1904-1989), his sale, Christie’s, 19th March 1985, lot 40, one of two; By descent to the present owner

Literature: James S. Dearden, John Ruskin – A Life in Pictures, 1999, pp. 49-51, no.41, ill.

Exhibited: Sheffield, Ruskin Gallery, The Portraits of John Ruskin, 9th September to 29th October 2000;Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, The Portraits of John Ruskin, 21st November 2000 to 24th January 2001

These two studies relate to a portrait by Richmond of Ruskin dating from 1857 when Ruskin was 38. The artist and sitter had originally met in Rome in 1840 and were close friends afterwards. Ruskin liked Richmond who `confirms my first impression of him. He is a most gentlemanly man, and of fine mind’ (quoted in Dearden, op. cit., p.28). These sketches were the result of seven sittings for the 1857 portrait between 24th February and mid March of that year.  The final painting was engraved by Francis Holl in the following year. The portrait hung at Brantwood, Ruskin’s home at Coniston, until the dispersal sale there in 1931 where it was bought by the American bookseller Charles Goodspeed, but was later destroyed in a fire. Holl’s engraving is a record of the portrait which has the same pose as the current drawings.

Richmond also drew a head study of Ruskin in chalk at around this date which remained in the artist’s collection until his death when it was bought by the National Portrait Gallery. He had also drawn James John Ruskin in 1848