Study for Katrina Van Tassel

Daniel Huntington's preparatory drawing captures a figure in early 19th-century dress—white linen bonnet and chemise—posed with a basin, likely a servant or domestic worker. The work demonstrates the academic practice of detailed figure studies from life before committing compositions to canvas. Huntington, a prolific American painter of historical and literary subjects, worked extensively from Washington Irving's tales. This sketch exemplifies the artist's method of rendering character and costume with precision, combining red chalk underdrawing with subtle modeling to achieve dimensional form.