Muirhead Bone studied architecture as a young man in the 1890s, and afterwards began studying painting and drawing. Bone used a realistic style in drawings, etchings, and watercolors of landscapes and buildings, including buildings under construction and ruins of demolished buildings. In 1900 he gave art classes in Ayr, Scotland. He was appointed as a British War Artist in 1916 to create propaganda for the war effort in World War I. He was knighted in 1937

Muirhead Bone – Little Girl Nude (no date)

Little Girl Nude is one of over 570 of Bone’s work in the Boston Public Library. Bone delighted in complex drawings of landscapes, machines, and architecture. He did drawings of people less often, and this is the only one I could find in the Boston Public Library collection, or in image searches, that would be appropriate for Pigtails.

At the bottom of the drawing Bone wrote his name, the note “Life Class”, and an illegible note in parentheses. An advertisement for the art classes that Muirhead Bone operated in Ayr said that life classes are included in the instruction; this drawing may be from one of those classes.