An écorché (a figure with the skin removed to display the musculature), presented as a living man, sits on a dais flanked by a young man and woman, and an elderly couple. A mixed audience looks on from behind. This drawing may have been made for a book of the Haarlem Guild of Saint Luke.

Casper Casteleyn had just joined this professional artists’ association in 1653, the very year he made this drawing.