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Study for I Know'd It Was Ripe

Thomas Hovenden

American Art

In contrast with the previous generation of American artists, Hovenden and his peers (most notably Thomas Eakins) added photography to the list of media in which they executed preparatory images for paintings. This drawing of a favorite model, posed as he would appear in the finished painting, was probably based on one of numerous photographs that Hovenden is known to have taken of the young man. The artist’s reliance on a photograph would account for the rather summary, intermittent quality of the pencil line that delineates the contours of the figure. The broad shading of the head anticipates the strong contrasts of light and dark that Hovenden sought in his broadly brushed canvas.
MEDIUM Graphite on tan wove paper
DATES ca. 1885
DIMENSIONS Sheet: 14 1/2 x 12 in. (36.8 x 30.5 cm) Image: 11 x 8 in. (27.9 x 20.3 cm)  (show scale)
SIGNATURE Unsigned
COLLECTIONS American Art
ACCESSION NUMBER 1993.85
CREDIT LINE Gift of Martha J. Fleischman
MUSEUM LOCATION This item is not on view
CAPTION Thomas Hovenden (American, 1840-1895). Study for I Know'd It Was Ripe, ca. 1885. Graphite on tan wove paper, Sheet: 14 1/2 x 12 in. (36.8 x 30.5 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Martha J. Fleischman, 1993.85 (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 1993.85_PS2.jpg)
IMAGE overall, 1993.85_PS2.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph, 2008
"CUR" at the beginning of an image file name means that the image was created by a curatorial staff member. These study images may be digital point-and-shoot photographs, when we don\'t yet have high-quality studio photography, or they may be scans of older negatives, slides, or photographic prints, providing historical documentation of the object.
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