Drawing from Life at the Royal Academy, Somerset House

Drawing from the human figure had been central to artistic training from the Italian Renaissance and, after London's Royal Academy was founded in 1768, regular life sessions were held for academicians and students. Both male and female models posed nude, but only men over the age of twenty were permitted to attend these sessions until 1898. Casts of sculptures offered another means to explore human anatomy and examples are seen here displayed on shelves around the back of the room.

Credit: Gift of Enid K. Rubin, 1979