Head of a Girl

This small portrait may be a fragment of a larger group by the English artist Isaac Fuller (1606?-72), or perhaps an intimate sketch depicting one of the artist’s own family. Despite her pristine dress, delicate pearl necklace and neatly arranged curls, Fuller captures the spirited personality of this girl. With her watery eyes darting to the left and eyebrows raised questioningly, she has perhaps been made to sit a little too long for this formal portrait.

Though Fuller trained in France, he found success back in England – namely in Oxford and London. As well as portraits – such as Head of a Girl – Fuller also carried out larger-scale historical, religious and mythological paintings, for sites ranging from prestigious Oxford colleges to London taverns. Head of a Girl was part of the ‘Cartwright Bequest’, an original group of 239 paintings which belonged to the actor, collector and benefactor of Dulwich College, William Cartwright (1607-86). At his death in 1686, Cartwright left his estate to Dulwich College, his paintings later becoming part of the Dulwich Picture Gallery collection. This painting was listed as number 110 in the 1686 inventory of Cartwright’s collection, as ‘a girl’s head done by Fuller in a blue bodice [and] in a black frame fitted with gold’.