Sketching - Emanuel Leutze
Medium
pen and brown ink over graphite on wove paper
Dimensions
sheet: 21.9 × 16.9 cm (8 5/8 × 6 5/8 in.)
Classification
Drawing
Department
CG-W
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
John Davis Hatch Collection
Accession Number
1979.20.118
Art Historical Context
In this intimate 1858 drawing titled *Sketching - Emanuelutze*, American sculptor John Quincy Adams Ward fellow artist Emanuel Leutze deeply engrossed in his creative process. Leutze, best known for his monumental history paintings like *Washington Crossing Delaware* (1851 is depicted in a candid moment of sketching, offering museum visitors a window into the-19th-century New York art scene where these two figures intersected amid a burgeoning American cultural identity. Ward's masterful use of pen and brown ink over graphite on wove paper—measuring a compact 21.9 × 16.9 cm—highlights the spo...
About the Artist
John Quincy Adams Ward · 1830–1910
John Quincy Adams Ward (1830–1910) was born in Urbana, Ohio, the fourth of eight children, and displayed an early aptitude for three-dimensional form, modeling figures in clay from childhood. In 1849 he moved to Brooklyn, New York, to apprentice under the sculptor Henry Kirke Brown, with whom he worked for seven years. Brown's emphasis on American subjects and his conviction that sculpture should ...