Study for Ceiling Decoration

Kenyon Cox

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Cox, who painted landscapes, portraits, and figure studies and worked as an art critic and teacher, was best known as a muralist. He created this preparatory study for a ceiling of an unidentified private apartment. Committed to the academic teachings of the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, Cox completed this rigorous study of a single nude female figure, using a grid system to ensure that the composition was properly proportioned. This sketch does not correspond to any of Cox’s specific commissioned murals, and it is not dated.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The American Wing's ever-evolving collection comprises some 20,000 works of art by African American, Euro American, Latin American, and Native American men and women. Ranging from the colonial to early-modern periods, the holdings include painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts—including furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, metalwork, jewelry, basketry, quill and bead embroidery—as well as historical interiors and architectural fragments.

Metropolitan Museum of Art