Composition

The canvas is narrower in proportion to its width than the finished portrait, Arrangement in Grey and Black, No. 2: Portrait of Thomas Carlyle [YMSM 137]. Both the paintings in the background of Sketch for the Portrait of Carlyle (2) [YMSM 134] were originally much taller than those in Arrangement in Grey and Black, No. 2: Portrait of Thomas Carlyle, although the lower one has been partly painted out. Further differences between this sketch and Arrangement in Grey and Black, No. 2: Portrait of Thomas Carlyle are that in the sketch Carlyle's hat appears to have a square crown, and that the shadow and dado behind the figure come right down to the coat and the chair legs.

Technique

Sketch for the Portrait of Carlyle (2) [YMSM 134] is painted over a dark brown ground, except for areas of pale blue to the left of the hat and at the top of the canvas, and some pink paint under the lower picture frame – suggesting that it, like Sketch for the Portrait of Carlyle (1) [YMSM 133], was painted over an earlier composition.

Conservation History

Unknown.