The dynamic figures, although not directly related to surviving designs by Blake, show the inventive poses he was interested in developing. The figure shown standing on his hands, for example, recalls Blake’s design for the title-page of his illustrations to The Grave of 1806. Meticulously articulated and boldly drawn, these preparatory studies point both to Blake’s inventiveness and his care in capturing the anatomy of the figures he used in his designs; the segmented musculature apparent in the hand-standing figure recalls an écorché model. The figure shown balancing on legs and hands, head thrown back to reveal the underside of the chin and neck, is a distinctly Blakean type, as is the kneeling figure on the verso, hands clamped behind neck in a prostrate pose. This figure in particular, with its compact, powerful torso recalls figures such as the devil from Blake’s 1805 watercolour The Devil Rebuked; The Burial of Moses, now in the Harvard Art Museums. Blake was a remarkably economic draughtsman who rarely wasted a sheet of paper, as a consequence even the slightest figure study often found itself developed into a finished design. This drawing is therefore unusual in showing Blake developing complex poses that seem never to have been reused.