In the eighteenth century, drawing was considered an essential skill for all artists. Painters, sculptors, printmakers, and architects honed their drawing abilities by sketching from paintings, prints, plaster casts of famous sculptures, and/or the human model. Drawing was also a popular pastime of the well-to-do, who could read an ever-growing number of publications on the subject. (This was the case with Lady Stanhope, depicted in Sir Joshua Reynolds’s portrait nearby, in which she is depicted with several drawing accessories.) Here a young artist–professional or amateur, we are not sure–gazes into the light as he makes a drawing with a porte-crayon (chalk holder) on a sheet of blue paper on his portfolio.