Study of Hand and Wrist

Francis Augustus Lathrop's anatomical study demonstrates the careful observation underlying late-nineteenth-century illustration. Working in pen and ink on ochre paper, Lathrop rendered the hand in three positions—relaxed, grasping, and extended—with attention to musculature and bone structure. Such studies formed the foundation of commercial art practice in the 1890s, when newspaper illustration and the emerging comic strip demanded artists who could render the human figure with anatomical credibility. Lathrop's disciplined approach typifies the academic training that equipped illustrators to populate the Sunday pages and dailies with characters whose gestures and expressions would soon define visual narrative conventions.