Chalk on paper
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
Collection
Unknown artist, Britain
a Human Skull
Presented by the Rev. John Gibson 1892
body
book - non-specific
objects
people
reading, writing, printed matter
skull
paper unique chalk
1 March 2003 – 9 January 2005
2005-01-09
2 April 2003 – 31 May 2003
2003-05-31
2003-04-02
Drawing Center (New York, USA)
18 June 2003 – 24 August 2003
2003-08-24
2003-06-18
Museum of Contemporary Art (Sydney, Australia)
26 September 2003 – 28 March 2004
2004-03-28
2003-09-26
Tate Liverpool (Liverpool, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/liverpool/
29 September 2004 – 9 January 2005
2005-01-09
2004-09-29
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2003-03-01
The Stage of Drawing: Gesture and Act Selected from the Tate Collection
Tate partnerships & programmes
Study of a Human Skull
support: 178 × 199 mm
frame: 425 × 441 × 24 mm
Presented by the Rev. John Gibson 1892
<p><a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/unknown-artist-britain-study-of-a-human-skull-n02220" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N02220</span></a> <b>Study of a Human Skull</b>? <i>c.</i> 1750</p>
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<p>Black chalk on cream hand-made paper 178×199 (7×7 3/4)</p>
<p>Presented by the Revd John Gibson to the National Gallery 1892; transferred to the Tate Gallery 1919</p>
<p>PROVENANCE ...; Revd John Gibson by 1892</p>
<p>EXHIBITED. Two Centuries of British Drawings from the Tate Gallery, CEMA tour 1944 (30 as Hogarth, ‘a study for “The Quack Doctor”’)
<br/>LITERATURE Michael Ayrton and Bernard Denvir, Hogarth's Drawings, 1948, p.78, pl.30 (as Hogarth, ‘a study for “The Quack Doctor”, dated 1744’); Davies 1959, p.56 n.104</p>
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<p>The <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/d/drawing" title="Glossary definition for 'Drawing'"><span>drawing</span></a> entered the National Gallery's collection in 1892 (with no.12) attributed to Hogarth. This attribution, retained after its transfer to the Tate Gallery in editions of the Tate Gallery's British School catalogue until 1947, was apparently based solely on what Martin Davies, more judiciously referring to the drawing in 1959 as ‘ascribed to Hogarth’, termed ‘some apparently chance resemblance’ to the skull which reposes (also propped up on a book, but looking towards the right) on a table on the right of Hogarth's ‘Marriage A-la-Mode III: The Visit to the Quack Doctor’ (National Gallery no.115, repr. Michael Wilson, The National Gallery, London, 1977, p.116).
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<br/>It is difficult to make confident suggestions either about the date of the drawing or its artist's country of origin. While it is included here as British School, the artist may prove to be Dutch of Flemish. The artist's purpose in making the drawing appears to have been primarily to exercise his powers of observation and draughtsmanship, which are evidently of a high order, with more sensitivity to the play of shadows than might be looked for in an anatomical or antiquarian draughtsman, yet with no exaggerated feeling for the macabre or for the poignancy of a <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/m/memento-mori" title="Glossary definition for 'Memento Mori'"><span>memento mori</span></a>.
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<br/><b>Published in:</b>
<br/>Elizabeth Einberg and Judy Egerton, <i>The Age of Hogarth: British Painters Born 1675-1709</i>, Tate Gallery Collections, II, London 1988
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Catalogue entry
2004-09-23T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
body book - non-specific objects people reading, writing, printed matter skull