Rear View of Seated Man

By the late 1600s, painters of religious subjects, such as Carlo Vimercati, sought to make the content of their church decorations more accessible to a general congregation through the use of dramatic gestures and observed naturalistic details. Such artists often relied on figure studies like this drawing of a posed studio assistant to capture the dress and physique of everyday people and thus imbue their paintings with realistic elements.

Credit: Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Leopold Blumka