A red chalk drawing of the Venus de' Medici. Mounted on a page removed from an album.

Richard Dalton was an agent, dealer and artist, and librarian to George III when Prince of Wales from 1755, and later as King. He trained under Agostino Masucci in Rome, and in 1749 accompanied James Caulfeild, 1st Earl of Charlemont, on a tour of Egypt, Turkey and Greece, recording the ancient sites in a series of drawings engraved and published in 1751. In 1758-9 Dalton was employed to buy drawings and medals while in Europe for George III and John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute, adviser to the Prince, and pictures for Sir Richard Grosvenor, later 1st Earl Grosvenor. Dalton also acted as agent to the King in the 1760s, assisting with the purchase of the collection of Consul Joseph Smith in 1762. He was probably also involved in the purchase of the collection of Cardinal Alessandro Albani in Rome the same year. Dalton faced jealousy from rival dealers and was said to be illiterate, an accusation that is not borne out by his surviving correspondence. In 1763-4 Dalton negotiated the purchase of a significant number of Guercino drawings for the King from the artist's heirs at the Casa Gennari in Bologna, and later engaged Francesco Bartolozzi to make prints after the Guercino drawings in the Royal Collection. Dalton also made prints after the Holbein drawings in the Royal Collection.
 
The present drawing is one of a number of red chalk copies in the Royal Collection after antique sculptures in the Palazzo Farnese, the Capitol, the Villa Medici and the Galleria Borghese made by Dalton while he was with Masucci in Rome. Dalton arrived in Italy in 1739, and by 1741 had entered Masucci's studio. Letters of 1741 from the Countess of Pomfret to the Countess of Hertford (Correspondence, 1805, iii, pp. 102 and 110) make reference to drawings made by Dalton in Rome, including some of statues drawn in red chalk for Lord Brooke. Copying antique sculptures was part of a long tradition and one of the rites of passage for an artist studying in Rome. Masucci had been a pupil of Carlo Maratta and Principe of the Accademia di San Luca. Other pupils of Masucci include Pompeo Batoni, Johann Zoffany and Gavin Hamilton. Dalton and several others made etchings after the drawings that were published in 1745–6 and reissued by John Boydell in the 1770s; examples of the prints are in the British Museum. The thirteen red chalk drawings in the Royal Collection were acquired in 1946. Several are still mounted on pages removed from an album; others are still pasted onto a coarse canvas backing. Several have worm holes and foxing.

As part of ongoing provenance research, this work has been identified as having uncertain or incomplete provenance for the years 1933–45. Royal Collection Trust welcomes information and assistance in the investigation and clarification of the provenance of all works during that era.