Female Nude, Seated, Three Quarter View from Front (1859): Art, History and Details

Female Nude, Seated, Three Quarter View from Front (1859) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is William Mulready (British, 1786–1863).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

For William Mulready, drawing was a lifelong preoccupation. This sheet was drawn from a model in the Royal Academy’s life school when the artist was 73. He was one of the academy’s most devoted teachers, positioning the model for his students and then drawing alongside them. Closely observed and meticulously crafted, the work attests to Mulready’s consummate skill as a draftsman.

Object facts

• Title: Female Nude, Seated, Three Quarter View from Front
• Date: 1859
• Creator attribution: William Mulready (British, 1786–1863)
• Culture: England, 19th century
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: black and red crayon
• Dimensions: Sheet: 49.2 x 34.1 cm (19 3/8 x 13 7/16 in.)
• Collection: DR - British
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 1978.53

A detail from the museum

In 1863, William Mulready testified before the Royal Commission Enquiry into the Royal Academy in support of the life class as central to academic education.

Collection credit

L. E. Holden Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Lee, Sherman E. "The Year in Review for 1978." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 66, no. 1 (1979): 3-47.
• Lemonedes, Heather. British Drawings: The Cleveland Museum of Art. Exh. Cat. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2013.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.