Study for Notre Dame de la Croix, Paris (recto); Nude Angel (verso)

In 1865 the painter Jules Louis Machard, then age 26, won a prestigious prize, which funded an extended stay in Rome. There he soaked up the styles and techniques of great artists from the past. In this moving drawing of a man peering from behind a wall, Machard seems to borrow from Raphael (1483–1520), who often partially obscured figures for dramatic effect. An inscription tells us that Machard drew this for an important commission that he won in Paris to paint scenes of the lives of Mary and her son, Jesus, for the church Notre Dame de la Croix (Our Lady of the Cross). The man, an apostle, seems amazed. Machard probably intended to use him as an onlooker in The Assumption, in which angels carry the Virgin Mary into heaven.