Model Study

Model Study, dated 1879 and held at the Thiel Gallery in Stockholm, is among Zorn's earliest documented figure studies, made when he was nineteen years old and developing the observational skills that would underpin his entire career. Academic training in the late nineteenth century was founded on rigorous drawing and painting from the model, and Zorn pursued this practice with characteristic intensity even though he was largely self-taught. The Thiel Gallery, established by the banker Ernest Thiel as a showcase for contemporary Scandinavian art, holds important works from across Zorn's career, and this early study is valuable precisely because it shows the foundations being laid for the mature technique. Working from a live model at nineteen required both technical patience and the ability to sustain observation across an extended session — skills that Zorn was clearly developing rapidly at this early stage.

Oil on canvas with the careful, patient approach of a young artist establishing academic fundamentals. The figure is modelled through tonal gradation with more care and less confidence than the mature Zorn's alla prima technique, but the observational accuracy and sensitivity to light are already remarkable.