Seated Male Nude

Louis Lagrenée

n.d. · Red chalk · Drawings and Prints

This sheet is of a kind sometimes called an academy, that is, a carefully executed drawing of a nude in a studio pose. Although academies were standard exercises for young artists, they were also produced by established draftsmen like Lagrenée, who was a professor at the Académie Royale at the time this drawing was made. As was typical, the model assumes a posture inspired by other works of art. The brooding expression and arrangement of the legs recall figures by Michelangelo, making Lagrenée's drawing both a study of the pose from life and an homage to the earlier master. The sharp contour and compact musculature give the figure a sculptural quality which is further enhanced by the hatching used to describe the volumes of the body and the shadows cast by the left arm and right leg.

Artist

Louis Lagrenée

Date

n.d.

Medium

Red chalk

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

Harry G. Sperling Fund, 1985