A figure study is a drawing, painting or sculpture that explores the human figure, either as a preparatory work for a larger composition or as a finished piece in its own right. Studies may focus on the whole body, a pose, drapery, anatomy, gesture or individual parts such as hands and heads, and they are often made from a live model or from classical casts.
Figure study has been central to artistic training since the Renaissance, when artists such as Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael made numerous drawings in chalk, pen and ink to work out their compositions. Academic training in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, including at the Royal Academy Schools in London, required students to progress from drawing antique casts to drawing from the life model. Many figure studies on the market are academic drawings by students or works by recognised artists, executed in charcoal, chalk, pencil, oil sketch or terracotta. Collectors value confident draughtsmanship, an understanding of form and movement, and a direct, unlaboured quality that reveals the artist's working process. Signatures, studio stamps and provenance help attribution, and well-framed figure studies bring an elegant, intimate note to libraries, studies and bedrooms.
