Study for 'Whispers': Male and Female Figures

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Drawing details

Title: Study for 'Whispers': Male and Female Figures
Date: c.1881
Media: Black and white chalk on brown paper
Dimensions: 33.1 x 23.4 cm
Location: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Massachusetts
Reference number: 1955.1684
Inscriptions: Inscribed in pencil, bottom right "Betrothed". Inscribed "L.1741"

Description

Full-length nude study for the two figures in the painting 'Whispers' (c.1881, untraced). A length of fabric is draped across the hips of the male figure. Lower left of sheet: nude study for the torso and left arm of the male figure in 'Whispers'. 

Provenance

Bequeathed by the artist to his sisters, Mrs. Augusta Matthews (nTe Augusta Neunburg Leighton, 1835-1919) and Mrs. Alexandra Orr (nTe Alexandra Leighton, 1828-1903); purchased by the Fine Art Society in 1896; purchased from the Fine Art Society by Laurence W. Hodson (patron and collector), Compton Hall, Wolverhampton; Cockerell Scott and Fowles, New York; purchased by Robert Sterling Clark (collector, 1877-1956) in 1917; presented by Clark to the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in 1955 

Bibliography

• Cockerell, S. Pepys, 'Drawings and Studies by Lord Leighton', London, 1898, pl.18
• 'Drawings and Studies by the Late Lord Leighton of Stretton, P.R.A.', The Fine Art Society, 1898, plate XVIII
• Egbert Hverkamp-Bergmann et al., 'Drawings from the Clark Institute', Yale University Press, New Haven, 1964, vol.1, p.56, no.67, vol.2, pl.65
• Ormond, LeonTe and Richard, 'Lord Leighton', Yale University Press, London, 1975, p.166 

Exhibition history

• Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute,' Exhibit Thirty-three: Drawings of the 17th, 18th and 19th Centuries', 03 July 1966, no. 67
• Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 'People: Men, Women and Couples', 24 January 1979 to 08 April 1979
• Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 'From Victoria to George: A Selection of British Drawings and Prints 1837-1912', 21 September 1991 to 05 January 1992