A standing male nude with arms raised, with a subsidiary study of a male torso (recto); and Figure studies (verso)

This early drawing is related to The Girlhood of the Virgin Mary, Rossetti’s first major oil painting and one of the very first products of the Pre-Raphaelite movement. In the finished picture (Tate Britain) the Virgin Mary is shown as a young girl, working on an embroidery with her mother, Anne. The present drawing is a study for her father, Joachim, who is seen in the middle distance, pruning a vine. The composition of the painting underwent many alterations, see Study for The Girlhood of the Virgin Mary; Christie’s, London, 12 June 2002, lot 42 (V. Surtees, The Paintings and Drawings of Dante Gabriel Rossetti: A Catalogue Raisonné, Oxford, 1971, I, no. 40A), and the figure of St Joachim is facing the opposite direction in the finished painting and in a rough sketch sold Christie’s, South Kensington, 3 June 2008, lot 131. Until the present drawing came to light, only two other studies for The Girlhood of the Virgin Mary were known (Surtees, op.cit. 40 A and 40 B).

The first meeting of the Pre-Raphaelites took place in September 1848, however Rossetti shared a studio with William Holman Hunt in August 1848 and it was during this summer that Rossetti composed The Girlhood of the Virgin Mary. The present drawing shows the stylistic influence of Hunt at this date.