A Sportsman with his rifle, seated on a bank

It has not been possible to identify the sitter, but it is probable that he was a friend of the artist. A number of comparable portrait drawings are known, one of which is illustrated in P. Noon, Richard Parkes Bonington: On the Pleasure of Painting, New Haven, 1991, fig. 10, entitled A young man, dated 1820 and measuring 9 x 6.3/8 in.

We are grateful to Patrick Noon for suggesting that the present drawing was probably executed in 1821-2, the signature is also typical of that period.