#7901_Angelica Kauffmann, personifying Design

This one-of-a-kind unframed original pencil and ink drawing was created by New Orleans artist Emilie Rhys, from a photograph of the painting, on September 11, 2017 at the Hotel Elysee in New York City. The artist, while visiting NYC on vacation, often sat in the hotel library and chose a book with photographs of art or historic photographs from which to draw.

There is a long history of artists turning for inspiration to the work of their predecessors, creating copies or interpretations of well-known masterworks.

Angelica Kaffmann was a Swiss neo-classical eighteenth-century artist who lived in London for some years and was one of the founders of the Royal Academy. In this drawing Ms. Rhys copied a presumed self-portrait of Kauffmann drawing the Belvedere Torso.