William Page, born Albany, NY 1811-died - Moses, Aaron and Hur on Mount Horeb (study - figure at right) - ca. 1857 - T-Shirt

A single standing male nude, one arm raised high above the head, drawn in fine pencil contour on pale yellowed paper.

Visual Elements & Composition

Pale yellow fills nearly the whole sheet, with small patches of graphite grey where the lines sit darkest. The figure is seen in three-quarter view from behind and to the side, its head turned left and its weight carried on one leg. The contours of the torso, hips and legs run in continuous, unbroken strokes. Faint marks around the legs show where the artist adjusted the line. The figure is set toward the right of a large, otherwise empty sheet, and the torn edge of the paper frames the open space around it.

Meaning & Symbolism

The study prepares the figures of the Mount Horeb episode in Exodus 17, where Moses holds his arms aloft while companions support them as the battle continues below. Isolated figures like this one let the artist test the balance and anatomy of a pose, since the strain of holding an arm up carries much of the story. William Page, born in Albany, New York, in 1811, was a portrait and history painter who spent much of his career in Italy, studying Renaissance and Venetian painting and the academic tradition of drawing from the figure. Studies like this one were part of his method for resolving individual poses before arranging them in a finished history composition.

Reading the Study on a Shirt

Like the sheet it comes from, the figure sits to one side and leaves room around it. On the shirt, that open field lets the single raised arm and the quiet contour lines read clearly, as they do on the paper. The drawing rewards a close look, the way a working study rewards the artist who returns to it.