Study for a Woman, "Vintage Festival," Mendelssohn Glee Club, New York

Robert Frederick Blum's preparatory sketch captures costume studies for a theatrical production by the Mendelssohn Glee Club. The sheet displays multiple figure studies in graphite, with one figure receiving watercolor detail—yellow, orange, and blue pigments indicating fabric draping and costume elements. Blum, a leading American illustrator and painter of the 1890s, employed such studies to develop theatrical designs and commercial illustrations. The economical layering of sketches reflects studio practice: rapid notation of poses and proportions alongside finished detail work for reference or client presentation. The aged paper and archival notation document the piece's institutional preservation, marking it as a working document in fin-de-siècle American visual culture.