THOMAS WORLIDGE (1700-1776)

STUDY OF A MAN WITH A HEADSCARF
 
Graphite, with stumping, and double framing lines in pencil
Signed with initials & dated u.r. TW 1761
20.4 x 14 cm
 
 
PROVENANCE
With Stephen Ongpin Fine Art, London
 
EXHIBITED
London, Stephen Ongpin Fine Art & Guy Peppiatt Fine Art, 'One Hundred Drawings and Watercolours', Winter 2016-17, cat. no. 9
 
 
 
 
 
 
Worlidge was a versatile artist who worked across several media throughout his career. He began as a portrait painter and miniaturist, but turned in middle life to producing head-studies such as the present sheet in black-head pencil, for which he charged two guineas, and found great commercial success in this. Later in life, he focused on producing etchings in the manner of Rembrandt, using a dry-needle with triangular point. Worlidge also made direct copies of some of Rembrandt’s prints, among them the artist’s portrait of himself and the hundred-gelder plate. An etching after Rembrandt’s portrait of Sir John Astley was described by Horace Walpole as Worlidge’s ‘best piece.’ 
 
 
Worlidge’s last work was his Antique Gems, a series of 182 etchings of antique gems and cameos. The series was published in several parts, some of which seem to have been issued as early as 1754; but Worlidge died before the work was completed. It was finished by his pupils William Grimaldi and George Powle. In April 1754 Worlidge had a large collection of his works to be sold by public auction. The printed catalogue bore the title, ‘A Collection of Pictures painted by Mr. Worlidge of Covent Garden, consisting’ ‘of Histories, Heads, Landscapes, and Dead Game, and also some Drawings.’ The highest price fetched was £51 15s. 6d., which was for a ‘fine head’ after Rembrandt. More than sixteen hundred prints and more than thirteen hundred drawings by Worlidge were sold by Abraham Langford in March 1767 by order of his widow, Elizabeth Wicksteed, who was a talented artist herself.