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Lot Essay
This handsome drawing is a study for The Kelpie, a picture Draper showed at the Royal Academy in 1913. It was included in the exhibition of his drawings that was held at the Leicester Galleries the same year, when it was praised by Sir Claude Phillips in a review in the Daily Telegraph. Three years later it was among a group of Draper's figure studies that were illustrated, without accompanying text, in the Studio magazine.
In December 1920, three months after Draper's death the previous September, the drawing was one of seventeen studies that were bought from his widow by John Hall, one of his most loyal patrons. Hall already owned three of Draper's subject paintings, and he and his wife had sat to him for their portraits in 1918. The Hall family were also painted by de Laszlo.
A comparable study (Toll, op. cit., 165 iv) descended in the artist's family and was in the first of Julian Hartnoll's three exhibitions of Draper's drawings, An Exhibition of Drawings by Herbert Draper, February 1999, no. 38 (illustrated in catalogue). This drawing must be later than ours since it is squared for transfer and shows the model's head turned more to the left, as it is in the painting. The mood is more alert than that of the present drawing, which is relaxed and contemplative by comparison.
The sitter for both studies was Jessie Morris, a favourite model who had been working for Draper since the mid-1890s. The Hartnoll catalogue describes her as 'a stage performer'.
In December 1920, three months after Draper's death the previous September, the drawing was one of seventeen studies that were bought from his widow by John Hall, one of his most loyal patrons. Hall already owned three of Draper's subject paintings, and he and his wife had sat to him for their portraits in 1918. The Hall family were also painted by de Laszlo.
A comparable study (Toll, op. cit., 165 iv) descended in the artist's family and was in the first of Julian Hartnoll's three exhibitions of Draper's drawings, An Exhibition of Drawings by Herbert Draper, February 1999, no. 38 (illustrated in catalogue). This drawing must be later than ours since it is squared for transfer and shows the model's head turned more to the left, as it is in the painting. The mood is more alert than that of the present drawing, which is relaxed and contemplative by comparison.
The sitter for both studies was Jessie Morris, a favourite model who had been working for Draper since the mid-1890s. The Hartnoll catalogue describes her as 'a stage performer'.