Art Institute of Chicago

Study for "An Aragonese Smuggler"

William Turner Dannat

Date

1881

Medium

Oil on canvas

Culture

United States

Department

Arts of the Americas

Institution

Art Institute of Chicago

This is a preparatory study for a large-scale, full-length composition of a peasant boy stealing a drink from a pitcher. William Turner Dannat trained in Munich and later in Paris, drawing inspiration from 17th-century Spanish masters like Diego Velázquez, as did his teachers, including the Hungarian painter Mihály Munkácsy. Dannat’s realist style, characterized by loose, expressive brushstrokes, is evident in both this study and in the final painting. The French government purchased An Aragonese Smuggler (1883; Château de Blérancourt) when it was first exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1883. This study is one of the Art Institute’s earliest acquisitions, entering the collection in 1887.

The authoritative record is held by Art Institute of Chicago. LinkedCulture surfaces this object and its connections; it does not alter institutional metadata.