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John Brown

Sketches of Heads (verso, left); Two Women (verso, right)

c. 1770–75
left: graphite; right: gray and black wash with point of brush and graphite

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In the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland · as of July 2026

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FROM THE CLEVELAND MUSEUM OF ART’S CATALOG

John Brown meant for the dark background of this drawing to evoke the potential danger of Italian nights; the writer Johann Joachim Winckelmann had been murdered in Trieste in 1768, in the most conspicuous example of the period's widespread violence.

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