Sketch for an Angel

Francis Augustus Lathrop's pen study explores figure composition through rapid notation. The sheet demonstrates the working method of late-nineteenth-century illustrators: multiple angles of a reclining figure, rendered with economical line work to resolve pose and proportion. The gestural quality—loose hatching, searching contours—reveals how artists developed designs before committing to finished work. Lathrop, a prominent American designer and illustrator of the period, employed such sketches as foundational studies for commercial and fine art projects. The golden paper stock, typical of the era, has aged to a warm ochre, documenting the material conditions of artistic practice in the 1880s.