French School

These two studies (2013.9:39a and b) are found in an album of 65 drawings assembled by Charles Bampfylde Braham (1822-1884), a musician, who presented the volume to his sister Frances Elizabeth Anne Braham, Countess Waldegrave (1821-1879). Many of the drawings are by eighteenth century British artists, though there are works by other schools represented. Most of the artists responsible are unrecorded. These drawings replicate figures created by Jacques Callot in his series Les Gueux, or The Mendicants, of about 1623. The figures are drawn in reverse of the prints, however, which suggests they are actually copies made after prints that reproduced Callot's figures in the corresponding orientation, such as those by Wenceslaus Hollar (Eight Beggars, 1630). It is not evident when these copies were made or whether they were produced by a French artist.