Sketch of the Ascension

Francis Augustus Lathrop's preparatory drawing demonstrates the visual ambition of late-nineteenth-century American religious art. The composition centers a robed figure ascending toward heaven, surrounded by heavenly figures above and earthly witnesses below—a traditional iconographic arrangement rendered through Lathrop's fluid draftsmanship. The sketch shows the artist's working process: gestural underdrawing, refined outlines, and notational marks indicating composition. Lathrop, trained in both fine arts and decorative design, worked across painting, illustration, and architectural ornament during the Aesthetic Movement. This drawing reflects the period's continued investment in grand religious subjects even as commercial illustration and emerging sequential art were reshaping American visual culture.