Studies for "The Bride at Her Toilet on the Day of Her Wedding"

Sir David Wilkie

ca. 1838 · Pen and brown ink, brush and wash · Drawings and Prints

This is one of a group of sketches where Wilkie developed compositional ideas for a painting he would show at the Royal Academy, London in 1838 (now National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh). Pen lines suggest movement, and wash is used to indicate shadow as the artist conveys the movements of a young woman dressing for her wedding watched by companions. The figure's nudity and elevated placement echo classical models, even though the subject was one of Scottish genre, and Wilkie's technique indebted to Dutch seventeenth-century masters such as Rembrandt.

Artist

Sir David Wilkie

Date

ca. 1838

Medium

Pen and brown ink, brush and wash

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

Rogers Fund, 1908