Design for "The Three Captains Memorial"
Medium
Watercolor over graphite, surrounded by a gold line, on paper backed by canvas (stretched on modern wooden frame)
Dimensions
Sheet: 31 11/16 × 26 in. (80.5 × 66 cm)
Classification
Drawings|Ornament & Architecture
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Purchase, Brooke Russell Astor Bequest, 2013
Accession Number
2013.540
Tags
Art Historical Context
This delicate watercolor over graphite design by Joseph Nollekens, leading neoclassical sculptor of late 18th-century Britain, presents a grand proposal for "The Three Captains Memorial," honoring naval heroes Captain William Blair, Lord Robert Mann, and Captain William Bay. Dated around 1784, it captures the era's fascination with monumental architecture to commemorate military valor, likely inspired by the captains' sacrifices during conflicts like the American Revolutionary War. Nollekens, renowned for marble busts and tombs, here translates sculptural ambition into a preparatory drawing, b...