Italian Stonebreakers

Austin was a leading artist, engraver, illustrator, and currency designer who worked in a precise, almost Pre-Raphaelite manner during the 1920s and ’30s. He seems to have been drawn to the image of stonebreakers—another version, owned by the National Gallery in Washington, was made into an engraving.Unlike in the National Gallery drawing, Austin here uses charcoal and all the lovely nuances of shading, to create a dynamic though clearly unfinished composition. The triangle of the three men is beautifully rendered but is made awkward by the positioning of the stretching figure at the back, whose placement interferes with the hatless figure at his right elbow. It’s not possible to know which of the two drawings Austin made first but ultimately he chose the singular seated figure as the model for the engraving.Interestingly, the front central figure in our version reflects a familiarity with Courbet’s The Stone Breakers (1849), and may have been the initial impetus for the subject of this drawing. The painting was destroyed in an Allied bombing in 1945. (“Drawing the Line: 150 Years of European Artists on Paper,” curated by Nancy E. Green and presented at the Johnson Museum January 20–June 10, 2018)