Studies of Male Nudes [verso]

The choice of laid paper adds a faint texture that interacts with the medium, enhancing the drawing’s tactile quality and reinforcing its spontaneous character.

Sargent employed charcoal for its capacity to produce both decisive, dark strokes and delicate, barely perceptible lines. This duality creates a contrast between sharply delineated muscle groups and softer transitions where light meets flesh. The choice of laid paper adds a faint texture that interacts with the medium, enhancing the drawing’s tactile quality and reinforcing its spontaneous character.

The piece forms part of Sargent’s extensive investigations of the male form, a practice he pursued alongside his portraiture and landscape work. While the drawing has remained within private collections for much of the twentieth century, it is now documented in the holdings of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, where it is referenced among the artist’s preparatory studies.