Study of a Nude Man

Study of a Nude Man, painted in 1828 and now in Cartwright Hall Art Gallery in Bradford, was made in the same year as Etty's election as Royal Academician — the year in which his professional status was definitively recognized by the British art establishment. The 1828 election was hard-won: Etty had been a regular exhibitor at the Royal Academy for nearly two decades before achieving full membership, his nude subjects provoking sufficient controversy to slow the process. This figure study of 1828, executed with the confident mastery that had earned him membership, demonstrates both the technical achievement his election recognized and his continued commitment to the life-class practice he had maintained throughout his career. Cartwright Hall Art Gallery, Bradford's civic art museum housed in a Baroque Revival building in Lister Park, holds this work within a collection that reflects the cultural ambitions of Yorkshire's industrial cities.

Executed with dramatic chiaroscuro and attention to sensuous flesh painting, the work reveals William Etty's characteristic approach to composition and surface. The treatment of light and the careful modulation of color create visual richness within a unified pictorial scheme.