Sketch of a Woman's Head

This ink sketch by Francis Augustus Lathrop demonstrates the portrait drawing techniques of the 1890s. Lathrop, an American artist and designer, employed confident cross-hatching and linear marks to model form and volume in the female profile. The economical line work and attention to facial structure reveal the classical training that characterized late-nineteenth-century American fine art practice. The preliminary nature of the sketch—with its notational quality and marginal studies—offers insight into how artists of this period developed compositions before committing to finished works.