Marchant shared lodgings in Rome with the Irish painter Henry Tresham who features in Hamilton’s startling conversation piece with Antonio Canova (Victoria & Albert Museum, London). Hamilton’s study of Canova in profile, recently acquired by the J. Paul Getty Museum, shares some of the intimacy and immediacy of the present work. Hamilton’s pastel was conceived as an oval and until recently housed in its original carved, giltwood frame with an oval slip. Unframing the pastel, for the first time since it was completed, revealed not only the margins of the sheet offering compelling evidence of Hamilton’s technique, but the unusual method he used to prevent the unfixed pastel surface from coming into contact with the glazing. As such, this remarkable work offers unprecedented evidence for the way in which pastel as medium was understood and protected in the eighteenth century.

Other highlights include an exceptionally refined head study made by Burne-Jones in preparation for his monumental painting The Wheel of Fortune now in the Musée d’Orsay, Paris. Completed in 1883 when it was shown at the Grosvenor Gallery, the composition went through a complex evolution. As Burne-Jones’s friend Graham Robertson noted: ‘He was pre-eminently a draughtsman… to draw was his natural mode of expression – line flowed from him almost without volition.’ Incisively worked, this beautiful head study demonstrates Burne-Jones’s exceptional powers as a draughtsman.

These and many more works will be on show in the gallery from Wednesday 28th June, so if you are in London do come and visit us.

Friday, 28 June to Friday, 5 July - 10AM-5PM and by appointment.