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The Butcher

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Date

c. 1857

Description

The drawing is formed by two sheets of paper very cleverly joined. The seam runs from the left edge just below the sides of the beef horizontally to the breast of the side of beef in the foreground. It then follows the line of the carcass around to the other side above the point where the pole disappears behind the haunch. It then proceeds horizontally over the butcher's head, vertically down behind his shoulder and horizontally to the right edge over the chopping block. The upper half has been added to the lower half sometime early in the execution of the drawing and thus it probably represents a substantial correction of an earlier conception to which the artist attached great importance, as he took such pains to conceal it and to unify the finished work. (undated Conservation note by Marjorie B. Cohn).
Medium: Watercolor, black ink, graphite, and black crayon on cream wove paper, two sheets joined irregularly across center.
Credit line: Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Bequest of Grenville L. Winthrop.