Benjamin West
Noah Sacrificing

ArtistAmerican, active England, 1738–1820
CultureAmerican
Titles
  • Noah Sacrificing
Dateprobably 1797–1801
Made inLondon, England
MediumPen, ink, and sepia wash on paper
DimensionsSheet: 4 5/16 × 8 1/2 in. (10.9 × 21.6 cm)
Credit LineThe Bayou Bend Collection, gift of Miss Ima Hogg
Object numberB.67.25
Non exposé

Explore Further

Department
Bayou Bend
Description

This gestural sketch is thought to be a study for Noah Sacrificing (c. 1801, San Antonio Museum of Art), a scene included in West’s mural commission for the unrealized royal chapel at Windsor on the subject of revealed religion. Noah, standing before an altar with upraised hands, is surrounded by loosely drawn people and animals. 

Related examples: Two drawings by West on the subject of Noah Sacrificing, one in black chalk, one in pen and ink, date to the 1790s, the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York.

Book excerpt: David B. Warren, Michael K. Brown, Elizabeth Ann Coleman, and Emily Ballew Neff. American Decorative Arts and Paintings in the Bayou Bend Collection. Houston: Princeton Univ. Press, 1998.


ProvenanceMr. and Mrs. Lawrence A. Fleischman, Detroit; [Kennedy Galleries, New York]; purchased by Miss Ima Hogg, 1967; given to MFAH.
Exhibition History"American Drawings, Pastels and Watercolors, Part One: Works of the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries," Kennedy Galleries, New York, March 14–April 28, 1967, no.4.

Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
Inscribed on recto, below image, in pencil: Noah's Sacrifice: a sketch by B. West. P.R.A.
Inscribed on verso, in ink: Benn[last n superscript]: West Esqr[r superscript]: / No[o superscript]:14 Newman St[t superscript]
[no marks]

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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