Images

https://piction.clevelandart.org/cma/ump.di?e=86233B211E8A6599550AE57210EFF58C69A669621D8BE47DFFFCC51A9541438D&s=24247294&se=1440724037&v=0&f=1978.20_o2.jpg

Additional Views

Jan 24, 2012

A Sacrifice Interrupted

1770s

John Hamilton Mortimer

(British, 1740–1779)

England, 18th century

Pen and brown ink

Support: Cream(3) laid paper

Sheet: 24.5 x 36 cm (9 5/8 x 14 3/16 in.); Secondary Support: 31.7 x 43.7 cm (12 1/2 x 17 3/16 in.)

Cornelia Blakemore Warner Fund and Delia E. Holden Fund 1978.20

Location

not on view

Did you know?

John Hamilton Mortimer's close friend James Gandon described Mortimer's technique: "He never altered a line . . . and all the time he [worked] he conversed and entertained his friends with the same easy cheerfulness and pleasantry as if wholly unemployed."

Description

One of the most talented draftsmen of his generation in England, John Hamilton Mortimer became known for a style of drawing in pen and ink that was bold, confident, and energetic. This sheet depicts a large crowd in a frieze-like arrangement gathered to witness a figure with an axe on the verge of decapitating a young male captive. Mortimer deliberately sought out obscure narratives and leaned toward the violent and macabre. In spite of the research of numerous art historians, the specific subject of the drawing has yet to be identified.

Provenance

?-1978

(Ramiel M. Howitt, London, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH)

1978-

Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH

Citations

Lee, Sherman E. "The Year in Review for 1978." Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 66, no. 1 (1979): 3-47. Mentioned: p. 44, no. 95 www.jstor.org

Sunderland, John. "John Hamilton Mortimer, His Life and Works." Walpole Society 52 (1988). Mentioned: pp. 198-9, no. 163; Reproduced: pl. 283

Smiles, Sam. The Image of Antiquity: Ancient Britain and the Romantic Imagination. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994. Mentioned: pp. 100-101; Reproduced: pl. 52

Smiles, Sam. "J.H. Mortimer and Ancient Britain: An Unrecorded Project and a New Identification." Apollo 142 (November 1995): 42-46. Mentioned: pp. 45-46; Reproduced: fig. 3

DeGrazia, Diane, and Carter E. Foster. Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Exh. Cat. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2000. Mentioned: pp.184-185, 294, no. 75; Reproduced; 185

Exhibition history

Year in Review: 1978. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 13-March 18, 1979).

18th Century Master Drawings. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (October 6-November 22, 1981).

The Birth and Flowering of British Romantic Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (May 1-July 22, 1990).

Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 27-October 17, 2000); The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY (May 23-August 19, 2001); Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, TX (October 14, 2001-January 6, 2002).

British Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art . The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 10-May 26, 2013).

Cite this page

{{cite web|title=A Sacrifice Interrupted|url=https://clevelandart.org/art/1978.20|author=John Hamilton Mortimer|year=1770s|access-date=01 December 2023|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Contact us

The information about this object, including provenance, may not be currently accurate. If you notice a mistake or have additional information about this object, please email collectionsdata@clevelandart.org.

To request more information about this object, study images, or bibliography, contact the Ingalls Library Reference Desk.

All images and data available through Open Access can be downloaded for free. For images not available through Open Access, a detail image, or any image with a color bar, request a digital file from Image Services.

You are here:

Images

A Sacrifice Interrupted

A Sacrifice Interrupted

John Hamilton Mortimer

Location

Download and Share

Did you know?

Description

Contact us