Head of a Young Man

Charles Fairfax Murray

Date: 1869 

Materials: Brush and brown ink

Murray holds an important place in the history of the Birmingham collection, as the collector and dealer from whom most of our Pre-Raphaelite drawings were purchased between 1903 and 1906.

In his youth he had aspirations as an artist, and worked as studio assistant for both Rossetti and Burne-Jones. He completed several ambitious oil paintings, and first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1867. Rowland Elzea has described his style as "a combination of Rossetti's colour, Burne-Jones's rhythmical composition, and Italian Renaissance figure types"; his drawings, of which this study is an exceptionally good example, share this range of inspiration.