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Seated Male Nude
About the Artwork
Michelangelo’s masterful rendering of the male nude set the standard for many generations of artists studying in academies across Europe. Life drawings (made from nude models) became so essential to an artist’s training at the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in Paris (founded in 1648 by Louis XIV) that finished drawings like these were commonly called academies. Louis de Boullogne served as a professor of life drawing at the Royal Academy between 1694 and 1715. This work reflects the common practice of drawing from models. Here, the pose of the red chalk academie by Claude Gillot is reminiscent of the twisting male bodies on Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling. Gillot may have seen prints or drawings of Michelangelo’s figures, though his model is more visually connected to the studio: for example, he drew the model’s stone perch as well as the drape tucked beneath his body.
Inscriptions
Signed, lower left in sanguine: Gillot
Provenance
Fischer-Kiener Galerie, Paris, October 1977
Exhibition history
French Master Drawings from the Collection of Muriel Butkin. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 26-October 28, 2001). Master/Apprentice: Imitation and Inspiration in the Renaissance. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 13, 2019-February 23, 2020).
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Claude Gillot (French, 1673–1722)
- Date
- 1693–95
- Medium
- red chalk
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 43.1 x 28.6 cm (16 15/16 x 11 1/4 in.)
- Type
- Drawing
- Classification
- Drawing
- Department
- Drawings
- Credit line
- Bequest of Muriel Butkin
- Accession no.
- 2008.353
More by Claude Gillot in museum collections
The Actors Making Ready (recto); Studies of the Holy Family and Saint John the Baptist (verso)
Claude Gillot1705/10 · Drawing
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Open-access museum record · AT-00011473
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