Dimensions: (both paper and image) 14 inches high by 11 inches wide
On a flower-covered rock one morning, an awakening sea-nymph stretches in the warmth of a blazing sunrise. As she seems to blossom, one young sea-nymph gazes up in open admiration of her, while another, more shy, turns her head away, not quite ready to blossom herself. The sea-nymph on the right reaches out, as in the dramatic old Renaissance drawings, perhaps to experience vicariously the blossoming of the stretching sea-nymph, perhaps to jealously stop her growth and pull her back down -- or perhaps only to mischievously pull off her gown?
The main figure is based on a lovely Italian-white-marble sculpture tentatively called "Dawn", at Yaddo Gardens, an artists' retreat in Sarasota Springs, New York. Yaddo Gardens is unsure of the true name of the sculpture, the identity of the sculptor, or even how the sculpture got there; probably put up in 1899 or 1900, the sculpture probably came from Milan -- it is mysteriously inscribed only "DB/Milano".
In 2003, I also created an adaptation of this drawing, a watercolor
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