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Lavinia de Irujo in profile, facing right

Maker

(artist)
1741-1825

Title

Lavinia de Irujo in profile, facing right

Date of Production

(December) 1814

Medium

black chalk on wove paper

Dimensions

Height: 23.5 cm
Width: 19 cm

Accession Number

D.1952.RW.1081

Mode of Acquisition

Robert Clermont Witt, bequest, 1952

Credit

The Courtauld, London (Samuel Courtauld Trust)

Copyright

Work in the public domain

Location

Not currently on display

Keywords




Label Text

This is the last in a series of around a dozen portraits that Fuseli drew of Lavinia de Irujo (1794–1866), the daughter of a Spanish diplomat. His earliest sketch of her dates from 1810, when she was just sixteen years of age, and he sixty-nine. Their unusual friendship appears to have breathed new life into the artist’s lifelong infatuation with the intricacies of women’s hairstyles.

Provenance

E. Parsons & Sons (London); purchased there by Sir Robert Witt, London (1872-1952), L.2228b, n.d. (16 shillings); Witt Bequest 1952

Exhibition History

Fuseli and the Modern Woman: Fashion, Fantasy, Fetishism, The Courtauld Gallery, London, 14/10/2022-08/01/2023

Johann Heinrich Fussli, 1741-1825, Kunsthaus Zurich, 18/07/1926-05/09/1926

Literature

Schiff, Gert, Johann Heinrich Füssli, 1741-1825, Zurich: Verlag Berichthaus, 1973, 2 vols.
no. 1664

Blunt, Anthony, Hand-list of the drawings in the Witt Collection, London, 1956
p. 20

David H Solkin, Füssli, Mode, Fetisch, Fantasie, Verlag Scheidegger & Spiess, 2023
cat. no. 11
p. 91. p. 106 p. 165 ...More

Solkin, Gottardo, Fuseli and the Modern Woman: Fashion, Fantasy, and Fetishism, The Courtauld Gallery, Kunsthaus Zurich, Paul Holberton Publishing, London, 2023.
cat. no. 11
p.91, 106, 163 ...Less

Inscriptions

Watermark: Watermark: none.

Inscription: Recto, lower right, black chalk, partly erased: "B[...]k F. Decr. 14". Verso: lower right, graphite, Witt number: "1081".

Collector's mark: Verso: lower right corner, stamped in black: Sir Robert Witt (L.2228b).

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