John Downman. Fright. 1770–1824. England. Charcoal with stumping and traces of brush and black wash on cream laid paper On a formative trip to Rome, John Downman drew copiously after the antique. For these two studies of human emotion, he likely used prints by Jean Audran after Charles Le Brun to illustrate his publication Expressions of the Passions of the Soul (from 1727, or later editions). While fright was part of Le Brun’s famous lecture on the topic of reproducing the emotions, he did not mention attention, and neither one appears in the nearby Encyclopédie pages.

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Photo credit: © WBC ART / Alamy / Afripics
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