Circle of Benjamin West, P.R.A.

With P. & D. Colnaghi & Co., London

This study relates to the figure of Armida in West's painting Rinaldo and Armida, dated 1766, now in the collection of Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey (fig.1; see G. Evans, Benjamin West and the Taste of his Times, Carbondale, Illinois 1959, pl. 16).  Professor Alan Staley has kindly suggested that the drawing is by an accomplished hand, and post-dates the painting, noting that it may have been executed when the painting returned to West's studio in 1790.