When this drawing from the Joseph F. McCrindle Collection entered the Morgan Library & Museum, it joined one of the largest collections of drawings by Benjamin West in the United States. The sheet features a young man and a group of children playing cricket on an open lawn.
Benjamin West first left for Europe in 1760 at the age of twenty-two, and this drawing likely dates to after his Grand Tour once he settled in London. The faces of the children might be compared to a red chalk drawing, In the Nursery, of 1784 in the British Museum (Inv. 1887,0613.3). The verso of the sheet contains a barely legible study of a domed building in graphite.
Inscribed on verso at upper left in graphite, "Bols / 2539 / ki/q / 150 /2".
McCrindle, Joseph F., former owner.