John Bathe (1849-1874)
Anatomical Study: the Human Skeleton, in Contrapposto
Pencil, pen and ink and wash; signed, inscribed 'John Bathe for studentship', and dated 'Dec.1870'; individual bones are numbered and the names are listed to the left
27 ¾ x 19 ½ inches
£3,000
Provenance
By descent from the family of the artist
An anatomical study by 21-year-old John Bathe, done in 1870 for studentship at the Royal Academy. He and his fellow students would have been taught that ‘anatomy is one of the great elementary principles of the art of design’, modelling their studies on the Academy’s plaster casts after ‘Phidias, Agasias, Gilcon … The artist cannot study the figures of the antique too frequently’ (JB Sharpe, Elements of Anatomy, 1818, p 7).