Inscribed at lower right, in red: "HBB".
Though Brabazon trained for a short time under James D'Egville and Alfred Downing Fripp, he was largely self-taught. On trips to Spain, Italy, Egypt, the Indies, and France, Brabazon executed scores of landscapes in watercolor. During that time he made copies--"souvenirs" as he referred to them--of the old masters. It is possible that the present sheet replicates a depiction of Christ on the Cross. Barbazon exhibited his work in London, with particular intensity from 1865 until 1870. As Adrian Bury would write, Brabazon had a gift for "summing up the intentions and style of an artist with a gesture, i.e. a gesture in watercolor."
McCrindle, Joseph F., former owner.
Hercules Brabazon Brabazon, NEAC (1821-1906), exh. cat. (London, 1989).