A drawing in black chalk of Michelangelo’s sculpture of Day in the Medici Chapel.

The drawing is a partial copy after Michelangelo’s sculpture for the tomb of Giuliano de’ Medici in the Medici Chapel in San Lorenzo, Florence. The figure is observed from a higher viewpoint than is seen from the floor of the chapel: the artist could have drawn the figure from a ladder, or perhaps more likely, the drawing was made from a modelled reduction of the sculpture. 

Michelangelo studied the figure in several surviving drawings, including a sheet in the Teylers Museum, Haarlem (Inv. A 30 r / Corpus 216), with a prominent study of the torso, seen from behind, and three separate studies for the left arm. Other drawings show Michelangelo’s study of the legs (Corpus 217,218, 219) or the figure in profile (Corpus 213 r).