Left Leg Écorgé

This model in wax of a left leg écorgé is an anatomical study by an unknown artist made in Florence ca 1550.

It was formerly ascribed to Michelangelo and appeared to be a study for one of the legs of the Dead Christ supported on the lap of the Virgin, placed behind the high altar of the Cathedral of Florence. But the leg is also closely similar to the left leg of the dead Christ in the Pietà in St. Peter's in Rome.

The French word écorché literally means flayed or skinned. It has been adopted almost universally by scholars when speaking of a human figure stripped of its skin and thus displaying the superficial layers of muscles. Sculpted models or statuettes in which the muscles of the body are revealed (or écorchés) first appeared in sixteenth century Europe, and in Italy primarily.