Study for "Country Cousins" (c. 1847–48): Art, History and Details

Study for "Country Cousins" (c. 1847–48) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Richard Redgrave (British, 1804–1888).

The work and its context

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

This drawing is a study for Richard Redgrave’s oil painting Country Cousins, a modern life subject in which class conflict is played out in a domestic interior. In the painting, a rural family calls upon their wealthy relations and is met with sneering condescension. The youngest figure in the composition, a country boy in profile with downcast eyes, is the subject of this acutely observed drawing, exquisitely rendered in black and red chalk with white highlights.

Object facts

• Title: Study for "Country Cousins"
• Date: c. 1847–48
• Creator attribution: Richard Redgrave (British, 1804–1888)
• Culture: England, 19th century
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: black, red, and white chalk
• Dimensions: Sheet: 37.5 x 27 cm (14 3/4 x 10 5/8 in.)
• Collection: DR - British
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 2011.127

A detail from the museum

The subject matter of Richard Redgrave's paintings was shaped by his impoverished upbringing, the deaths of his mother and sister, and the burden of responsibility for debt-collecting for his father's precarious manufacturing business.

Collection credit

Bequest of Dr. Paul J. Vignos Jr.

Further reading listed by the museum

• 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.