Study of the artist's son, John
John Linnell British
Not on view
Linnell’s intimate sketch captures his twelve-year old son John supporting a large book and dressed in either a student's coat or country smock. The artist’s household at Bayswater, which then lay outside greater London, grew vegetables and kept bees, and those rural pursuits are perhaps referenced by the sitter’s garb, while the twisted pose centered around a large book echoes Michelangelo’s famous Prophets and Sibyls in the Sistine Chapel. Linnell had nine children when he made this drawing in 1835 and worked as a professional portraitist to ensure a reliable source of income, while also producing visionary landscapes.
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