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Lot Essay
Nu de dos is an important and historic painting by Berthe Morisot, a rare example of an oil nude which has featured in many of the most important exhibitions dedicated to the artist including the posthumous one organised by many of the titans of Impressionism in 1896 at the Galerie Durand-Ruel. This picture also has incredible provenance, having been owned first by Claude Monet and then been purchased by Morisot's own daughter, Julie Manet; it has subsequently remained in the family's hands.
Nu de dos is usually accorded a date of 1885, and therefore dates from the beginning of Morisot's interest in the female nude as subject matter (Charles Stuckey dated the picture to 1886-87). Morisot shared this interest with many of the Impressionists, not least Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Indeed, when the two artists realised that they were focussing on such subjects, Morisot visited his studio, in January 1886, seeing the celebrated Grandes baigneuses upon which he was working.
For Morisot, part of the attraction of the female nude as subject matter was due to her interest in harmonies such as those in the paintings of François Boucher. This is clear in Nu de dos in the visual assonance between the pink walls and the flesh tones of the model. Stuckey identified this sitter as Carmine Gaudin, a professional model who would also pose, albeit not nude, for Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (see C.F. Stuckey & W.P. Scott, Berthe Morisot: Impressionist, London, 1987, p. 126). Morisot's inexperience with nude subjects and also her own natural modesty may have resulted in the view from the back shown here. The picture was painted in the bathroom at her home on the rue de Villejuste in Paris, where she had moved two years earlier. This would doubtless afford both artist and sitter alike some privacy.
Morisot clearly appreciated Nu de dos, as she revisited the composition in a drypoint. In addition, a charcoal study of the subject exists, as does a related but different pastel, showing a woman on a chair with long hair and without her left arm raised in the same way; that work also featured the faint outline of another figure.
Nu de dos is usually accorded a date of 1885, and therefore dates from the beginning of Morisot's interest in the female nude as subject matter (Charles Stuckey dated the picture to 1886-87). Morisot shared this interest with many of the Impressionists, not least Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Indeed, when the two artists realised that they were focussing on such subjects, Morisot visited his studio, in January 1886, seeing the celebrated Grandes baigneuses upon which he was working.
For Morisot, part of the attraction of the female nude as subject matter was due to her interest in harmonies such as those in the paintings of François Boucher. This is clear in Nu de dos in the visual assonance between the pink walls and the flesh tones of the model. Stuckey identified this sitter as Carmine Gaudin, a professional model who would also pose, albeit not nude, for Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (see C.F. Stuckey & W.P. Scott, Berthe Morisot: Impressionist, London, 1987, p. 126). Morisot's inexperience with nude subjects and also her own natural modesty may have resulted in the view from the back shown here. The picture was painted in the bathroom at her home on the rue de Villejuste in Paris, where she had moved two years earlier. This would doubtless afford both artist and sitter alike some privacy.
Morisot clearly appreciated Nu de dos, as she revisited the composition in a drypoint. In addition, a charcoal study of the subject exists, as does a related but different pastel, showing a woman on a chair with long hair and without her left arm raised in the same way; that work also featured the faint outline of another figure.