2-730-751 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Head of a Boy Singing (Study for Music), c. 1898. This sheet was a preparatory study for the face of a singing boy who appears near the center of Music, a mural decorating the left grand staircase at the Théâtre National de l’Opéra-Comique, Paris. Drawn from life with exquisite naturalism, Merson captured the sitter’s youthful beauty with such clarity that the purity of the boy’s voice seems to emanate from the drawing.