{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O155925"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O155925/"}},"images":{"_primary_thumbnail":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2010EE6124/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg","_iiif_image":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2010EE6124/","_alt_iiif_image":[],"imageResolution":"high","_images_meta":[{"assetRef":"2010EE6124","copyright":"©Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false}]},"see_also":{"_iiif_pres":"https://iiif.vam.ac.uk/collections/O155925/manifest.json","_alt_iiif_pres":[]}},"record":{"systemNumber":"O155925","accessionNumber":"SKM.5","objectType":"Oil painting","titles":[{"title":"Skeleton Drawing","type":"generic title"},{"title":"Anatomy","type":""}],"summaryDescription":"","physicalDescription":"Four figures in interior. One man seated with skull in front of drawings of skeletons on the right. Two males stood and one female seated on the left. Signed 'Marks' in bottom left corner.","artistMakerPerson":[{"name":{"text":"Marks, Henry Stacy","id":"A8641"},"association":{"text":"painter","id":"x36959"},"note":""}],"artistMakerOrganisations":[],"artistMakerPeople":[],"materials":[{"text":"oil paint","id":"AAT15050"},{"text":"canvas","id":"AAT14078"}],"techniques":[{"text":"oil painting","id":"AAT178684"}],"materialsAndTechniques":"Oil on canvas","categories":[{"text":"Paintings","id":"THES48917"},{"text":"History of the V&A","id":"THES252692"},{"text":"Fabric of the Building","id":"THES287227"}],"styles":[{"text":"British School","id":"x30967"},{"text":"Victorian","id":"AAT21232"}],"collectionCode":{"text":"PDP","id":"THES48595"},"images":["2010EE6124"],"imageResolution":"high","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"101","id":"THES49933"},"free":"","case":"Lunette","shelf":"5","box":""}],"partTypes":[[{"text":"oil paintings","id":"AAT33799"}]],"contentWarnings":[{"apprise":"","note":""}],"placesOfOrigin":[{"place":{"text":"London","id":"x28980"},"association":{"text":"painted","id":"x30138"},"note":""}],"productionDates":[{"date":{"text":"1868","earliest":"1868-01-01","latest":"1868-12-31"},"association":{"text":"painted","id":"x30138"},"note":""}],"associatedObjects":[],"creditLine":"Conserved with the support of The Pilgrim Trust, with additional thanks to The Worshipful Company of Grocers","dimensions":[{"dimension":"Height","value":"143.5","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"measured from highest point of lunette","note":""},{"dimension":"Width","value":"263.5","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""}],"dimensionsNote":"","marksAndInscriptions":[{"content":"'MARKS'","inscriber":{"name":{"text":"","id":""},"association":{"text":"","id":""}},"date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"description":"","interpretation":"","language":"","medium":"","method":"","position":"","script":"","translation":"","transliteration":"","type":"","note":"Signed by the artist in bottom left corner"}],"objectHistory":"<i>Skeleton Drawing</i> was commissioned in 1868 to decorate one of eighteen lunette-shaped recesses in the upper portion of rooms 100 and 101 (at that time the National Competition Gallery). The lunettes were removed just before the Second World War and placed in store. This painting, along with the eight others made for the west wall of room 101, was conserved and reinstalled in its original location in August 2010.\n\nHistorical significance: The National Competition Gallery (now rooms 100 and 101) in the East Ranges of the Museum was completed in 1864-65. At that time it was formed of two parallel top-lit rooms; these were used for the marking and display of work by art students in Department of Science and Art-run schools across the country. Richard Redgrave, who was placed in charge of the decoration of the gallery in 1863, proposed to commission paintings for the eighteen lunettes along the upper sections of the walls. The project, managed jointly by Redgrave and Henry Cole, continued for thirteen years; several lunettes were completed and in position by 1868, although work was not completed fully until 1876.\r\n\r\nBroadly speaking, there were two stages in the production of the lunettes. Most of those created towards the beginning of the period were decorative, allegorical paintings carried out by art students from designs by Godfrey Sykes, Frank Moody, Alfred Morgan and Redgrave. A second stage was initiated in November of 1867 by William Frederick Yeames who contacted Cole and suggested that he should be commissioned for the project. Initial plans to commission other artists of the stature of Leighton, Watts and Poynter were scaled down, and the core of those chosen were historical genre painters from the loose association of artists known as the St John's Wood Clique: Yeames himself, G.D. Leslie, Henry Stacy Marks and D.W. Wynfield. Cole held a meeting with the artists to establish a theme for the lunettes, and, appropriately for a gallery in which students' work was displayed and judged, it was decided that the paintings should represent the practices of drawing, painting and sculpture in a programmatic representation of Redgrave's curriculum for art schools, the National Course of Art Instruction. The resulting subjects treated by the compositional canvases included life drawing, modelling from the life, study of anatomy, landscape painting, flower painting and still life drawing.   \r\n\r\nThe various artistic activities represented in the paintings are set within relevant historical contexts; each takes place within the period and place considered to have fostered its inception or its apogee. So still-life drawing is given a 17th-century Flemish setting; and landscape sketching takes place in 19th-century England. \r\n\r\nThe costume here suggests a Renaissance Florentine setting. This alludes to the seminal role played by Florence both in the practice of drawing and in the importance attached to understanding the structure of the human body in order to represent it accurately. \r\n\r\nThe genre painter Henry Stacy Marks (1829-1898) was a founder member of the St John's Wood Clique. His subjects were either literary, especially Shakespearean, or historical and often humorous (Marks himself was a notorious practical joker). He exhibited at the Royal Academy for nearly half a century, from 1853 to 1897, and became a Royal Academician in 1878.","historicalContext":"","briefDescription":"Decorative lunette painting, commissioned for the National Competition Gallery (now Rooms 100 and 101). H. Stacy Marks, 'Skeleton Drawing', or 'Anatomy', 1868. Lunette 5 for Room 101, west wall (commencing from south end).","bibliographicReferences":[{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"John Physick, <i>The Victoria and Albert Museum: the History of its Building</i>, London 1982, pp. 83-87."},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Henry Stacy Marks, <u>Pen and Pencil Sketches</u> (London: Chatto and Windus, 1894), p. 209"},{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Jim Dimond, Susan Owens and Sophie Reddington, 'The conservation of twenty paintings for the V&A's National Competition Gallery', <u>The Picture Restorer</u>, no. 38, Spring 2011, pp. 14-16."}],"production":"","productionType":{"text":"","id":""},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[],"associatedPlaces":[],"contentPerson":[],"associatedPerson":[],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[{"text":"drawing","id":"x32498"},{"text":"skull","id":"AAT191856"},{"text":"anatomy","id":"AAT54465"}],"contentConcepts":[],"contentLiteraryRefs":[],"galleryLabels":[],"partNumbers":["SKM.5"],"accessionNumberNum":"5","accessionNumberPrefix":"SKM","accessionYear":null,"otherNumbers":[],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE"],"assets":[],"recordModificationDate":"2026-04-09","recordCreationDate":"2008-06-12","availableToBook":false}}