A Portrait of Welby Sherman Asleep in a Chair (1828): Art, History and Details

A Portrait of Welby Sherman Asleep in a Chair (1828) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is George Richmond (British, 1809–1896).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

George Richmond’s study of his friend, the dozing artist, Welby Sherman, was endearingly inscribed, "As he may be seen after dinner." Dressed in a cravat and jacket and seated in a hard-backed chair, Sherman has momentarily drifted off, perhaps during a lull in friendly conversation. Minute touches of black wash define the bridge of his nose, eyelashes, and brow, and exquisitely subtle graphite hatching expresses the soft curves of the youthful sitter’s features. Touches of pink wash on the lips and cheek breathe life into the figure.

Object facts

• Title: A Portrait of Welby Sherman Asleep in a Chair
• Date: 1828
• Creator attribution: George Richmond (British, 1809–1896)
• Culture: England, 19th century
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: graphite with touches of watercolor
• Dimensions: Sheet: 16 x 13.2 cm (6 5/16 x 5 3/16 in.)
• Collection: DR - British
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 1981.29

A detail from the museum

Both George Richmond and Welby Sherman belonged to a group of artists who called themselves the Ancients, who looked to the Middle Ages for inspiration and celebrated the divine in nature.

Collection credit

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Edward B. Greene by exchange

Further reading listed by the museum

• Lister, Raymond. George Richmond: A Critical Biography. London: Robin Garton, 1981.
• Lee, Sherman E. “The Year in Review for 1981.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 69, no. 2 (February 1982): 39–82.
• Lemonedes, Heather. British Drawings: The Cleveland Museum of Art. Exh. Cat. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2013.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.