Study of a Man Holding a Basket

From the Getty Museum record

Portrayed on a sheet of vivid blue paper, a man wearing worn clothes and a large floppy hat gestures towards a large basket in his right hand. Schellinks used black chalk to describe the man's outline, studying the shadow cast under the brim of the hat and folds of fabric. He further suggested the fall of sunlight through the use of white chalk, which is particularly pronounced on the man's right shoulder. Traces and modifications of some of his earlier design are discernable around the hat and the figure's limbs. The artist used a more delicate touch to highlight the basket, hands, and man's face. For Schellinks, such studies would have been useful both in mastering the depiction of the human form and in creating a stockpile of staffage that could be used to populate his paintings.