A sheet of anatomical studies in pen and ink of a male torso and legs, from the right side and from behind, showing the muscles as if the skin had been stripped (écorché). A sheet of further studies of anatomical details in the same technique is at RCIN 990475. It is probable that the studies on the present sheet were made from a wax or clay model; the anatomical details suggest that it was the same model as that studied in a sequence of three sheets in red chalk also at Windsor (RCIN 990624 and 990802-3), and that that model was made by Michelangelo (see 990624 for a fuller discussion).

The attribution of this pair of drawings has been disputed. Like the group of three red chalk anatomical studies, they were catalogued by J. Wilde (Popham and Wilde 1949, nos. 442-3) as ‘School of Michelangelo’, suggesting that they ‘may therefore be copies of sheets from the same book of anatomical studies to which the studies in red chalk once belonged’. Though they do not have key letters at the top left of each sheet, as the red chalk studies do, these two sheets of pen studies do bear inscribed numbers that suggests that all five have been together from an early date. M. Hirst (exh. Washington/Paris 1988-9, no. 27) accepted them as by Michelangelo himself, juxtaposing the present sheet with a study of legs of a recumbent figure that is much more plainly by Michelangelo, and shows an almost identical rough handling of the pen (Uffizi; op. cit., no. 26). P. Joannides also attributed the two sheets of pen studies to Michelangelo, along with the red chalk studies, explaining the difference in style from most of Michelangelo’s pen drawings on the grounds that they ‘are concerned with structure, not with surface, and make no attempt to convey light and shade … They are strictly practical, slightly dry, end-directed drawings’ (Michelangelo and his Influence, 1996, nos. 26-27).

Inscribed in pen in different hands: upper right, ‘no. 39’ and ’36.’; on the verso, ‘di Michel Angelo bona Roti’.