Donald Shaw MacLaughlan, born - The Model - unknown - T-Shirt

A seated young woman with short, waved hair looks out of the picture with a grave, direct gaze, drawn in warm chalk and charcoal by Donald Shaw MacLaughlan.

Visual Elements & Composition

The sitter fills the upper half of the sheet, turned slightly to the left, with her face and bare arm built in soft orange-brown chalk. Her hair and grey-sleeved top are worked in charcoal, and her arm rests across a pale draped form at the lower edge, the hand relaxed over its side. The background is left as the open cream of the paper, so the warm peach of the skin and the cool warm greys of the clothing carry the whole image. The title The Model is inscribed in the lower left, and the date 1918 appears on the sheet.

Meaning & Symbolism

The title names the relationship at the centre of the drawing: an artist and the person who sits for them. The sitter is shown at ease but attentive, neither posed for display nor held at a formal distance, which gives her a calm presence. Donald Shaw MacLaughlan (1876–1938) was a Scottish-born painter and etcher who worked in London and Paris, and he produced figure and portrait studies alongside his landscapes and waterfront subjects. This sheet shows his command of mixed chalk and charcoal in a figure study, and it belongs to the early twentieth-century British tradition of intimate portrait drawing.

Wearing the Portrait

On a tee, the drawing sits across the chest, so the sitter's gaze meets the wearer's at conversation distance. The seated figure and the relaxed arm read as one calm shape from across a room, while the detail of the face rewards a closer look. The simple, open background means the figure carries the design on its own, with no competing elements around it.