Attrib. Henry Bright NWS Young Women with Red Hair

An original mid-19th-century pastel drawing – Attrib. Henry Bright NWS, Young Women with Red Hair.

In this captivating pastel drawing, attributed to the Norwich School artist Henry Bright NWS (1810–1873), a red-haired young lady carrying a large-brimmed hat looks on against a rolling landscape backdrop. The drawing employs an economical palette of compelling contrasts—of orange and blue, yellow and white—harmoniously brought together by the choice of blue paper.

Bright counted John Sell Cotman amongst his mentors in Norwich, and under his influence developed a drawing style of particular freedom and directness. A natural draughtsman, Bright made his name as a specialist in ‘coloured chalks’, now known as pastels. As the author and critic Frederic Gordon Roe wrote in 1920, 'His pastels and water-colours, by which he is best known at Walker's Galleries, seldom failed either in tenderness or harmony…. He was emphatically a stupendous draughtsman, and it is amazing to note how level was the balance of his mind between drawing and colour.'

Bright was principally a landscape artist, finding subject in picturesque rustic views both in his native East Anglia and further afield. He made regular sketching tours in England, Scotland and Wales, and also on the Continent. During the latter he struck up a friendship with J.M.W. Turner, travelling in Turner's company on at least two sketching excursions.

This portrait subject is unusual for Bright. On occasions he included rustic figures in his landscapes and pastoral scenes, and there is a crayon portrait sketch in the V&A collection (E.2492-1928). In his 1864 painting 'The Cottage Door' (York Art Gallery), the subject is a young woman at a cottage door, similar in contemplative feel to the present drawing. Our young lady depicted in pastel, however, is rather more genteel and appears more as an observer of the landscape rather than a participant within it. Perhaps this suggests that the subject is known to the artist—could this be his eldest daughter, who, after her mother's premature death in 1848, accompanied Bright on several sketching excursions?

After a move to London in 1836, Bright enjoyed considerable success as a painter and drawing master. His circle included Samuel Prout, David Cox, and John Duffield Harding amongst others. Queen Victoria purchased one of his paintings in 1844 and his work was much praised by John Ruskin.

His work is represented in numerous public collections, including the British Museum, V&A, Tate, Colchester & Ipswich Museums Service, Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery and York Art Gallery.

In pastel on blue coarse-textured wove paper.

The drawing is accompanied by its historic paper wrapping which bears the attribution.