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An Oil sketch is an artwork made principally in oil paints, and which is more abbreviated in handle than a fully finished painting. Formerly these were generated as preparatory studies, especially so as to gain approval for the design of a larger commissioned painting. They were also used as designs for experts in other media, such as printmaking, to follow. Later they were created as independent works, often with no thought of being expanded into a full-size painting.

The normal medium for modelli was the drawing, but an oil sketch, even if done in a limited variety of colours, could better propose the tone of the projected work. It is also possible to more fully convey the flow and energy of a composition in paint. For a painter with outstanding technique, the production of an oil sketch may be as rapid as that of a drawing, and many practitioners had superb brush skills. In its rapidity of implementation the oil sketch may be used not only to express movement and passing effects of light and color, its gesture nature may even represent a mimetic parallel to the action of the subject.