A standing male nude

Born in York to a Quaker family, Henry Scott Tuke is best-known for his paintings of the male nude. He executed a number of oil studies of young male nudes during a tour of Italy in his early twenties in 1881, but the theme did not become central to his work until after 1885, in which year he moved to Falmouth, then still a secluded part of the Cornish coast. Here in the mild seaside climate Tuke focused on maritime scenes, portraits and genre scenes which showed boys and young men bathing, fishing and sunbathing on sun-suffused, idyllic beaches. His finished oils of this kind typically show figures in a variety of poses, and the present watercolour may be a study intended for a larger work.