Filippo Agricola

Filippo Agricola spent decades hunched over a single marble torso, sketching the same contorted figure over and over. His 1800–1857 drawings of the *Laocoön* show every sinew, not to copy but to really look—he once erased half a page after noticing a shadow fell wrong. You’ll find this habit in the Getty’s study room: where others rushed past, he lingered until the sculpture felt like it might breathe. Track down his *Study of the Laocoön* there and watch how a single sheet can turn a lifeless cast into something alive.