This drawing was probably made in the life drawing class of the Slade School of Art, London, where William Orpen studied between 1897 and 1899. He was a star student noted for his 'tireless industry and ambition'. He had long practice in the life class and wrote about his studies in a memoir: 'At the age of eleven I entered the School of Art, Dublin, and I at once became an old man, one of the world's workers. [...] I remember little of the next six years except being very tired at night.' He recalled the introduction of life models when he was aged twelve. This drawing is distinctive for the use of clean, sharp pencil lines, which clearly separate it from life class drawings Orpen made in Dublin where modelling was achieved with delicately smudged areas of chalk dust (known as stumping) (cf. 'A Nude Boy', 1897, National Gallery of Ireland, NGI.7740).