A Country Girl at Surrentum
Allan Ramsay British, Scottish
Not on view
Ramsay was a leading British portraitist considered particularly sympathetic to female subjects. Repeated visits to France and Italy refined the artist’s draftsmanship, and he made this study in 1776 after spending a summer at a spa on Ischia, near Naples, where he received treatment for an arm injury. By September he was sufficiently recovered to make several red chalk drawings, including this sensitive study of an Italian girl at Sorrento. The sensual treatment of neck and cheek, combined with unfocused gaze and simple dress, encapsulates the naturalism of Ramsay’s late style, while the pose in profile and Latinized place name of Surrentum—inscribed on the verso—evoke the classical past.
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