Study of a Woman's Head

This pencil sketch by Francis Augustus Lathrop demonstrates the figure-drawing practice fundamental to late-nineteenth-century illustration. The work showcases careful anatomical study through cross-hatching and linear modeling, techniques essential to newspaper and magazine illustration of the era. Lathrop's training in academic drawing reflects the foundational skills that commercial illustrators applied to emerging sequential narrative forms. The sketch reveals the artist's attention to three-dimensional form and facial structure—knowledge that would inform both fine art and the visual conventions developing in comic strips and illustrated narratives of the period.