SIR EDWARD JOHN POYNTER, P.R.A. (BRITISH, 1826-1919)

Idle Fears was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1894, two years prior to Poynter’s appointment as President of the Academy. The painting depicts a mother or attendant preparing a nervous adolescent girl for a bath in ancient Rome. Poynter has used Michelangelo’s powerful Libyan Sibyl in the Sistine Chapel as inspiration for the pose of the central figure, depicted in the present drawing. Poynter was a meticulous draughtsman and made several preliminary sketches for this work in various media, beginning with pencil and chalk sketches and working up to significantly more finished sketched executed in oil.