Anatomical drawings

© Tate Collection

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Sir William Orpen (1878 - 1931)

Tate Collection

circa 1906

Orpen's twenty large anatomical drawings are superb pieces of draughtsmanship, in addition to their interest as rare examples of teaching material. They were used by Orpen to teach his students anatomy, pinned up on the blackboard. In them Orpen depicts the body's structure of bone, the muscles which stretch over them and the way that limbs move. He was a highly regarded portrait painter in his lifetime but with the advent of modernism, the avant-garde eclipsed him in subsequent accounts of British art.

• Medium: coloured chalk on black paper
• Dimensions: various
• Art Fund Grant: £70000 ( Total: £160,000)
• ArtFunded in: 2011
• Vendor: Private collection

Provenance

By descent to the vendor.

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