Jacopo Tintoretto

As his biographer Carlo Ridolfi noted, Tintoretto loved to "draw from the live model in all sorts of poses, endowing them with grace." This study is executed in Tintoretto's preferred medium of black chalk on coarsely fibered paper. The model could not have held this position for long, and supports himself with a stick. He was probably also kneeling on a stool, but Tintoretto chose not to represent this prosaic prop in his dynamic drawing.