The Thaw Collection: Master Drawings and Oil Sketches, Acquisitions Since 1994

During Ingres's first tenure in Rome, from 1806 until 1820, he drew and painted portraits of foreign visitors and officials, although multifigure compositions, such as the present sheet, are rare. The sitters are the wife and daughters of Johann Gottfried Reinhold (1771–1838), who, after the dissolution of the Napoleonic regime, was appointed the Dutch ambassador to Rome and Florence. Reinhold commissioned at least three portraits from the artist while his family was stationed in Rome between 1814 and 1827.

After meeting William Blake, who became a friend and mentor, in 1824, Palmer developed a form of Romantic landscape combining naturalist observation with a visionary style. This drawing depicts a view in Lullingstone Park, near the village of Shoreham in Kent. The artist focused on the giant oak in the foreground, suggesting the texture of its bark with a brilliant skein of dots, circles, and tiny scribbles. He conveyed light through an innovative application of yellow watercolor over white gouache, to which he applied gum arabic, imparting shine, and occasional dots of red watercolor.