Portal:Martial arts/Selected picture/11

Right, a bearded white man wearing a yellow loin-cloth wrestles with a black man, left, who is on one knee. Rich green background.

The Wrestlers is an oil painting on millboard by English artist William Etty, painted around 1840 and currently in the York Art Gallery, in York, England. It depicts a wrestling match between a black man and a white man, both glistening with sweat and under an intense light emphasising their curves and musculature. While little documentation of the painting exists prior to 1947, it is likely that it was painted over a period of three evenings at the life class of the Royal Academy. (Full article...)