Study after Anthony van Dyck's 'The Brazen Serpent', 24 December 1994

Sarah Simblet (b. 1972)

RA Collection: Art

Sarah Simblet was awarded the Richard Ford Award travelling scholarship to Spain while she was an undergraduate at Christ Church, University of Oxford. She spent three months in Madrid from November 1994 to January 1995.

In correspondence with the Royal Academy in 2011, Simblet wrote: 'The three months I spent in Madrid ... studying at the Prado were such an - extremely - important and formative time for me. I very often think of my time there and of my conversations with Sir Brinsley Ford, and I still have the books on Goya that he signed and gave to me.'

Simblet went on to complete a doctorate in drawing at Bristol University and has since published three books, Anatomy for the Artist (2001), The Drawing Book (2005) and Botany for the Artist (2010). She teaches at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, University of Oxford.

This double-page spread from her sketchbook is a study after a Van Dyck painting held in the Prado. Her sketchbook is held in the Royal Academy Collections (09/1523) and pages from it, including this spread, are reproduced in The Drawing Book.