Eight head studies and three figure studies

Formally misattributed to Henry Fuseli (1741-1825), this group of drawings nearly doubles the number of known drawings attributed to Francis Le Piper, an amateur artist of Walloon descent, whose family is documented as owning property in Canterbury from the late 16th Century. Le Piper travelled widely in Europe and even visited Cairo. He is best known for his set of twelve small oil paintings illustrating Samuel Butler's Hudibras, anticipating Hogarth's illustrations for the same book (Tate Britain, Rye Art Gallery and elsewhere; see Tate Gallery Report 1959-60, London 1960, pp. 20-21, and Tate Gallery Report 1963-64, London 1964, pp. 30-31).

These drawings have been attributed to Le Piper on the basis of four similar drawings in the British Museum (5224-80 and 5237-40/42; E. Croft-Murray and P. Hulton, Catalogue of British Drawings, I, XVI and XVII Centuries, London, 1960, pp. 424-5, three examples illustrated pls. 223-4), and also to a group of five drawings sold in these Rooms on 2 March 1971, lot 50; other examples, from the collection of Hugh Howard (1637-1737), are in the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven.