Sitzende Frau, die Hände in den Schoß gelegt 

Philipp Rumpf made this pencil drawing, "Sitzende Frau, die Hände in den Schoß gelegt" or "Seated Woman, Hands in her Lap," sometime in the 19th century. The drawing offers a glimpse into the artistic process of the time. We can see that the artist used a grid to transfer an image from one surface to another. This was a common technique, used for copying or scaling up an image, like a preparatory study for a larger painting. What’s also interesting is the way it reflects academic art training of the period. In the 1800s, art academies taught students to draw from life, but also to copy from plaster casts and other artworks. The emphasis was on mastering established forms. This drawing, with its careful rendering of the figure, would have been a standard exercise. To understand the social context of art like this, we need to look at the institutions that supported it, the values they promoted, and the kind of artistic careers they enabled. This type of historical research helps us grasp the social life of art.