Study after an Écorché

Ludger Larose probably executed this charcoal sketch of an "écorché", or flayed man, at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris around 1889-1892, after a plaster model derived from Jean-Antoine Houdon's famous "Flayed Man with Arm Stretched" of 1767. The "écorché", more nude than nude, so to speak, since it is stripped of its epidermis, permitted the student to familiarize himself with the subtle play of the tensed musculature.