A double-sided sheet of anatomical studies in pen and ink of details of the male anatomy - the muscles of the neck, arm and legs, as if the skin had been stripped (écorché). A sheet of further studies of anatomical studies in the same technique is at RCIN 990474 - see that sheet for a fuller discussion. 

Michelangelo reputedly conducted human dissections as a young man, and this double-sided sheet from later in his life shows his deep familiarity with human anatomy. The drawings are probably made from recollection, as the lines are schematic and the shading rudimentary, but he captures the tensions at the knee and neck with great power.

Like all Italian artists, Michelangelo drew with ‘iron gall’ ink, a mixture of tannic acid from oak galls and iron salts, which can corrode the paper over time. Here the ink has eaten right through in places, and so this side of the sheet has been supported with thin tissue paper. 

Inscribed in pen in different hands, on the verso, 'no. 43' and ‘Michel Anglo Buona Roti’.