Sheet of Studies: Seated Man, Head of a Dog, Seated Woman (1700s): Art, History and Details

Sheet of Studies: Seated Man, Head of a Dog, Seated Woman (1700s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Claude-Joseph Vernet (French, 1714–1789).

The work and its context

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

At age 20, Claude-Joseph Vernet traveled to Italy, where he remained for two decades, painting landscape views of the Roman countryside and stormy, imaginary seascapes for Italian aristocrats and wealthy French and British tourists. Vernet populated his paintings with contemporary figures based on sketches from life, such as the three shown here. Drawn at different times in different media, together they form an amusing glimpse of Italian street life in the 1700s.

Object facts

• Title: Sheet of Studies: Seated Man, Head of a Dog, Seated Woman
• Date: 1700s
• Creator attribution: Claude-Joseph Vernet (French, 1714–1789)
• Culture: France
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: red chalk (seated man); black chalk (head of a dog); pen and brown ink over black chalk (seated woman)
• Dimensions: Sheet: 12.4 x 12.7 cm (4 7/8 x 5 in.)
• Collection: DR - French
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 2003.265

A detail from the museum

Claude-Joseph Vernet was first trained as an artist by his father, who was an artisan specializing in carriage decorations.

Collection credit

Bequest of Nicholas J. Velloney

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.