Charity: A Sketch

Charity: A Sketch of 1891, held at the Victoria and Albert Museum, belongs to Puvis's late career, when he was working simultaneously on large public commissions and smaller allegorical studies exploring virtues as personified figures. Charity — the theological virtue of selfless love and care for others — was a staple of Western allegorical painting, and Puvis's approach reflects his late manner: simplified, gravity-laden figures in a setting stripped of specific time and place. The V&A canvas is explicitly a sketch (as its title acknowledges), which permits a looseness of handling unusual in his exhibited work. By 1891 Puvis was internationally celebrated — his work had been exhibited widely across Europe and America — and his treatment of traditional allegorical subjects carried the authority of a long career spent mastering the form. The sketch may have been preparatory for a larger decorative work or an independent statement of the theme.

The sketch format allows broader, less finished paint application than Puvis's exhibited canvases, revealing the underlying constructive process: rapid tonal blocking followed by figure drawing in a restrained palette of near-neutral tones. The surface retains evidence of reworking and adjustment, unusual in his finished work.