This is one of a set of superb anatomical drawings, mostly in
red chalk, that emerged from a course of instruction in anatomical
drawing held around 1813-1815. An écorché is a drawing, painting or
sculpture of a body that shows muscles but not skin.
The driving force was the controversial painter Benjamin Robert
Haydon (1786-1846). Haydon thought British artists should emulate
Raphael and Michelangelo and produce paintings of important events
in history and religion, not just portraits of landowners and
pictures of their race horses etc. As Raphael and Michelangelo had
studied anatomy to give lifelikeness to the heroes in their
pictures, so Haydon set up classes outside the Royal Academy
Schools, and in competition with them, to enable art students to
emulate Raphael and Michelangelo in the study of anatomy. He
recruited his friend the anatomist Charles Bell to be the
professor, and the talented teenage sons of the engraver John
Landseer to be the students. The Landseers were willing members of
the class because their father was in dispute with the Royal
Academy over its refusal to admit engravers to the rank of Royal
Academician.
Bell performed some spectacular dissections, Haydon showed the
Landseers how to draw them, and the teenage boys executed many
drawings such as this one, using Haydon's drawings as their model.
By a twist of fate, Charles Landseer, the author of this drawing,
later himself became the keeper of the Royal Academy Schools, and
Haydon's own anatomical drawings are kept today in the Royal
Academy's drawings collection.