This is the sketch model in terracotta (baked clay) for the marble figure of Thomas Wentworth, 3rd Earl Strafford, at Wentworth Castle, made by John Michael Rysbrack. He stands in a contrapposto (slightly twisted) pose wearing Roman armour under a draped cloak, with close-cropped hair in the antique style. Rysbrack's models are often, as here, highly finished, and this terracotta closely resembles the lifesize marble for which it was a study.

Rysbrack (1694-1770) was born in Antwerp, and trained in the Netherlands, but spent his working life in Britain. He was one of the most important sculptors active in this country in the first half of the 18th century, and specialised in portrait busts and funerary monuments. Although he never visited Italy, many of his works are clearly indebted to classical archetypes. His terracotta models are particularly fine, and are often virtually finished pieces in their own right.