2-728-542 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Female Nude, Seated, Three Quarter View from Front, 1859. For Mulready, drawing was a lifelong preoccupation. These two sheets were drawn from models in the Royal Academy’s life school when the artist was 73. He was one of the Academy’s most devoted teachers, positioning the model for his students and then drawing alongside them. Closely observed and meticulously crafted, both drawings attest to Mulready’s consummate skill as a draftsman. The sensuality of the female nude and the weather-beaten face of the male model are as arresting today as they were in Victorian London.