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| Anonymous British Artist Life Class ca. 1760 oil on canvas (unfinished) Royal Academy of Arts, London |
"There is reason to believe that this picture may be the only known depiction of the St Martin's Lane Academy. Several factors support this hypothesis. In the first place, the relatively small room in which the artists are situated accords more closely with descriptions of the St Martin's Lane Academy than the barn-like structure which has in the past been identified with it [see below]."
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| Anonymous British Artist Life Class early 19th century drawing British Museum |
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| Anonymous British Artist Life Class early 19th century oil on canvas Royal Academy of Arts, London |
"This painting was purchased by the Royal Academy of Arts in 1883 as a representation of the St Martin's Lane Academy by William Hogarth. In 1963, when the picture was exhibited at the Royal Academy, it was suggested that it was not British but of French or Italian origin. However, in 1964 it was still attributed to Hogarth, and a date of c. 1740-50 was generally accepted." Martin Postle in The Artist's Model of 1991 goes on to offer an extensive list of technical and historical reasons for suspecting that both the painting and the drawing that closely resembles it are 19th-century fakes.
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| Johan Zoffany Academicians of the Royal Academy 1771-72 oil on canvas Royal Collection, Great Britain |
"This painting shows the assembled Royal Academicians, together with two male models in the newly-founded Royal Academy of Arts. . . . According to Horace Walpole, Zoffany made no design for the painting 'but clapped in the artists as they came to him, and yet all the attitudes are easy and natural, most of the likenesses strong.' The grouping of the figures in the composition, however, which reflects the various artists' standing within the existing status quo, suggests that Zoffany knew perfectly well where he felt everyone ought to be fitted in. . . . The room depicted was in the Royal Palace at Old Somerset House on the Strand, where the Royal Academy had been given permission to run drawing classes from the life and from the Antique by George III. The presence of the semi-circular benches and the lamp suggest that this was the room in which life drawing usually took place. The presence of the plaster écorché figure indicates perhaps that the room was used also for Hunter's lectures on anatomy. The centrality of life drawing to the curriculum of the newly-founded Academy is suggested not only by the presence of two male models, but the manner in which the focus of the sitters' attention is centred largely on them. . . . In January 1769 rules had been laid down concerning the running of the Life School, or 'Academy of Living Models.' Briefly, there were two terms each year, Summer and Winter. All the life drawing was done in the evening, from six o'clock in Winter and from four o'clock in Summer. Male and female models were supplied. No unmarried man under the age of 20 was allowed to draw from the female model. While it was never specified that the two female members of the Academy, Mary Moser and Angelica Kauffmann, were forbidden to study from the model, their portraits on the wall in this work, rather than [their presence] in the room itself, suggest that it would have been deemed improper for them to have done so."
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| Richard Earlom after Johan Zoffany Academicians of the Royal Academy 1773 mezzotint Yale Center for British Art |
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| John Boyne A Meeting of Connoisseurs ca. 1807 watercolor Victoria & Albert Museum, London |
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| Elias Martin Visit of Gustav III to the Royal Academy of Arts, Stockholm 1782 oil on canvas Nationalmuseum, Stockholm |
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| John Hamilton Mortimer An Academy ca. 1759-60 oil on canvas (grisaille) Royal Academy of Arts, London |
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| Simon-François Ravenet after John Hamilton Mortimer An Academy 1771 engraving Royal Academy of Arts, London |
"As Sunderland has noted, this engraving formed the frontispiece to the second volume of John Boydell's A Collection of Prints, published in 1772, although it is not known whether it was designed specifically for this purpose. . . . Of this engraving, Sunderland states: 'The standing nude male model has a hairstyle which was fashionable c. 1759-60. The model is being drawn and painted in a room with a curved wall, faced with an entablature of plain triglyphs and metopes supported by Doric pilasters. In the foreground a Doric column is swathed by a curtain drape.' . . . Sunderland notes that the academy shown by Mortimer is probably imaginary. The grand surroundings suggest a continental academy rather than a British one – although Mortimer never traveled abroad."
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| Thomas Rowlandson A Dutch Academy 1792 hand-colored etching British Museum |
"The opposition of Dutch conceptions of the human figure to an Italianate or classical ideal was well-established by the end of the 18th century, it being commonplace to admire Rembrandt's handling whilst deploring his inability to infuse beauty into the female form. . . . This is one of a number of satirical views of the Life Class produced by Rowlandson, although it is the only one which does not directly refer to the Royal Academy Schools. . . . Rowlandson's own behaviour as a student in the Academy Schools (he enrolled as a student there on 6 November 1777) had not always been distinguished by earnest application, as his friend Henry Angelo recalled: 'The latter once gave great offence by carrying a pea-shooter into the life academy, and, whilst old Moser was adjusting the female model, and had just directed her contour, Rowlandson let fly a pea, which making her start, she threw herself entirely out of position, and interrupted the gravity of the study for the whole evening. For this offence, Master Rowlandson went near to getting himself expelled.'
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| Thomas Rowlandson and Augustus Charles Pugin Drawing from Life at the Royal Academy, Somerset House 1808 hand-colored etching and aquatint by Richard Harraden Royal Academy of Arts, London |
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| John Thomas Smith Life Class, London ca. 1790-1810 drawing British Museum |
"Smith, who is best known for his work as an antiquarian and for his biography of Joseph Nollekens, was not a pupil at the Royal Academy Schools. He trained in Nollekens' studio from 1778 to 1781, although his subsequent artistic work was as a topographical draughtsman. This drawing does not seem to depict the Royal Academy Schools, but a much smaller class for amateurs rather than for aspiring professionals. The two seated men, for example, appear to be drawing from the cast of a foot, although they are in the presence of a living model – whereas life drawing and drawing from the Antique usually took place in separate rooms. It is known that Smith worked as a drawing master in Edmonton in the late 1780s and early '90s, which raises the possibility that this drawing was done at that time. Nevertheless, it was not, as far as it is known, the general practice to draw from the living model at such establishments."
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| William Hogarth Analysis of Beauty (plate I) 1753 etching and engraving British Museum |
"The scene depicted by Hogarth in the first plate of his Analysis of Beauty is probably the celebrated statuary yard of John Cheere on Hyde Park Corner, where, as the artist noted at the time, casts taken from famous antique statuary were more fêted than their modern counterparts. Among the casts which feature prominently in Hogarth's engraving are, from left to right, bust-length and full-length versions of the Farnese Hercules, the Belvedere Antinoüs, the Laocoön (in the background by the gate), the Venus de' Medici, the Belvedere Torso, and the Apollo Belvedere."
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| Paul Sandby Puggs Graces etched from his Original Daubing 1753 etching British Museum |
"In November 1753 Hogarth published the Analysis of Beauty, in which he had, among other things, attacked the burgeoning desire among his fellow artists for an Academy shaped along continental lines. In December Paul Sandby, who was one of the group who opposed Hogarth, published eight etchings, including Puggs Graces, which were intended to undermine Hogarth's position. Sandby, who had recently completed his work on the Survey of Scotland, was by early 1753 holding life drawing classes with his brother Thomas in their house in Poultney Street. An invitation card, dated 26 February, survives, and is inscribed: 'To Sit or Sketch a figure here / We'll Study hard from Six till Nine / And then attack cold Beef and Wine.' In Puggs Graces Hogarth, his legs shown to resemble those of his own pug dog, is depicted painting from three grotesque female models representing a travesty of the Three Graces."
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| Benjamin Robert Haydon Recumbent Model 1806 drawing Yale Center for British Art |
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| Christian August Lorentzen Model School at the Copenhagen Academy ca. 1815-20 oil on canvas Museum of National History, Frederiksborg Castle, Hillerød, Denmark |
– quoted passages from The Artist's Model: its Role in British Art from Lely to Etty by Ilaria Bignamini and Martin Postle (exhibition catalogue, Nottingham University Art Gallery, 1991)