Couple in 17th Century Dress Standing Before Entrance to Park

Charles de Anson · 1864

Medium

Graphite, heightened with white gouache, on pale green wove paper, laid down on cream wove card

Original size

32.6 × 25.5 cm (12 7/8 × 10 1/16 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Romanticism

Delicate yet stately, this 1864 drawing captures a couple dressed in the fashions of two centuries prior, paused at the threshold of a park with an air of quiet ceremony. Charles de Anson worked in a disciplined academic tradition, and this piece demonstrates his mastery of the heightened drawing technique — graphite lines establishing form and shadow, then white gouache lifted across the surface to describe light on fabric, lace, and foliage. The choice of pale green wove paper was deliberate: the mid-tone ground allowed him to work in both directions simultaneously, darkening into shadow and brightening toward highlight without layering unnecessary pigment. The result has the controlled elegance of a preparatory study elevated to finished work. The piece is held in the permanent collection of the Art Institute of Chicago, which acquired it as part of its holdings in European works on paper. Because the original is a drawing rather than a painting, translating it to oil on canvas is itself an interpretive act — one that honours the tonal restraint of Anson's technique while giving the image the physical depth and presence that only paint can provide. Each hand-painted reproduction is built up from careful observation of the original, preserving the balance of light and shadow that makes this work quietly arresting.