Study of a Male Nude

French artists in Rome often gathered at the Villa Medici for after-dinner drawing sessions. On one such occasion, in the company of Gustave Moreau, the young Degas made this study. The two artists depicted the same nude, but from different vantage points. Degas dated his study “1857 ”speculatively, many years later, but Moreau recorded “1858” at the time. The model’s dramatic pose—raised arm, eyes turned heavenward—was in keeping with the large-scale paintings favored by the French state in the 1850s. These tended to show heroic subject matter; the figure here could have been a potential prototype for a multifigure composition.