Sketches for Silver Salver (recto); Sketches of Friezes, Groups of Women (verso) n.d.

Thomas Stothard made this drawing with pen and brown ink, likely in England. Here he sketches friezes and groups of women. These nudes show the ongoing influence of classical antiquity in late 18th century artistic education. Looking back to the art of ancient Greece and Rome was a way for artists like Stothard to connect their work to the distant past, implying timeless artistic values. As an instructor at the Royal Academy, Stothard would have encouraged his students to master the classical ideal, learning to draw the human figure based on established canons of proportion. He wanted to train them to become the next generation of British artists. The academic system helped enshrine a firm hierarchy of artistic genres, placing history painting at the top and landscape at the bottom. Drawings like this are vital documents for understanding not only individual artists but also the institutions that shaped artistic production in their time. We can consult archive material to understand the politics of these institutions.