Study of a draped female figure, standing and holding a pitcher on her right shoulder
Albert Joseph Moore, ARWS 1841-1893
1872
Black and white chalks on pale brown pape
Dimensions: 14 3/8 x 9 inches, 36.5 X 23 cm.
Provenance: Henry Holiday
For the design for Claremont, near Manchester
The present drawing relates to the scheme of decoration which Moore designed for the octagonal hall of Claremont near Manchester, the house of Mr. Oliver Heywood.. The scheme was executed in about 1867, but by the time of Moore's death it was in poor condition, according to Baldry. It is now destroyed. Moore's treatment of the scheme may be deduced from a chalk cartoon for one of the panels which shows the figures nude (Victoria & Albert Museum). The pose of the figure in the present drawing corresponds to that of the nude female figure second from the right in the cartoon. Moore's practice was to prepare detailed cartoons which showed nude figures for his decorative schemes and easel paintings. The draperies would be added to the final work from fresh and delicate studies drawn from the life, either by way of more cartoons or directly. Moore's surviving cartoons are in the Victoria and Albert Museum, but his drawings are scattered. The present drawing shows the form the figure would have taken in the final scheme.
Henry Holiday, the owner of the drawing, was one of Moore's fellow students at the Royal Academy in the 1850s and a member of a sketching club with him in that period. — Hilary Morgan