A young man grasped by the hair by a young woman, with a man looks on

The daughter of a Swiss artist and child prodigy, Angelika Kauffmann became one of the most celebrated artists of her time, at home in her native country, Italy and London alike, and enjoying the favors of an international clientele. The composition of the present drawing may be related to a picture on which she worked around 1773, depicting Telemachus at the court of Sparta, discovered by his grief on hearing of his father’s sufferings (compare B. Baumgärtel, Angelika Kauffmann, exhib. cat., Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf, Munich, Haus der Kunst, and Chur, Bündner Kunstmuseum, 1999, nos. 234, 235, ill.).

We are grateful to Bettina Baumgärtel of the Angelica Kauffmann Research Project for her help in writing this note and for confirming (on the basis of a photograph) the attribution of the drawing, which will be included in the Project's forthcoming catalogue raisonné.