This article was originally published to celebrate International Women’s Day in 2015.

With women now represented in the Membership and awarded the right to study from a life model during their education, the third arena where we discover an intriguing facet to the history of women at the RA is back in the Life Room.

The Academy championed the importance of teaching its students life drawing by integrating the facilities for drawing from life within its first headquarters in Pall Mall, and later in Old Somerset House. In general, female nude models were not introduced into academies in Europe until the 19th century, but England was the exception, with the Royal Academy itself recording the use of female models as early as 1769. Here it was agreed that in addition to four male models, one female model should be employed three times a week for each of the summer and winter terms. In the same year, rules were established to ensure that men under the age of 20 who were unmarried were prohibited from drawing from the female nude.

I was interested to find out what type of woman would have been willing to become a nude life model, in the context of the mid-18th century, when women were generally regarded as the passive property of their husband or their fathers. Interestingly, in 1769 the person responsible for acquiring such women was none other than George Michael Moser, then Keeper at the Academy and founding member Mary Moser’s father. Male models at the time were chosen for their physique, and were often the porters of the Academy, soldiers or boxers. Women on the other hand often presented more of a challenge. They were often prostitutes or working class women whose bodies would not necessarily have been in their prime, and in many cases it would have been the brothel owner who sent them, regardless of their own wishes.