Richard Cosway, R.A. (Devon 1742-1821 London)

The present drawing depicts St Joan kneeling against an altar within a richly decorated gothic church. Cosway was a great collector, and ahead of his time in his appreciation of the art of the early Renaissance. The present St Joan composition must in part be influenced by an important Renaissance picture in his own collection, The Mass of St Giles (now in the National Gallery, London, see S. Lloyd, Richard and Maria Cosway, Regency Artists of Taste and Fashion, ex. cat., Scottish National Portrait Gallery and National Portrait Gallery, London, 1995, p. 75, fig. 12).