Nude Seated

1912

Childe Hassam

Artist, American, 1859 - 1935

A nude, pale-skinned woman sits facing away from us on a surface with bunches of blue and green-toned fabrics in this vertical painting. The woman’s right knee and torso angle away from us to the right, but she turns her head a bit to our left so we see the underside of her chin. Her brown hair is pulled up loosely into a high bun. Her right hand rests on fabric bunched on that leg, and her other hand disappears on the far side of lemon-lime green and celestial-blue pile of cloth near the lower left corner of the painting. The background is mostly golden yellow, perhaps a curtain, with some vertical pleats in moss green along the left side. The woman is lit from our right so the edges of her right arm, breast, torso, leg, and neck glow. The scene is loosely painted but has an overall soft, blended look. The artist signed and dated the painting in the top right corner, “Childe Hassam 1912.”

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Chester Dale Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 61 x 55.9 cm (24 x 22 in.)
    framed: 85.4 x 80.3 x 7.6 cm (33 5/8 x 31 5/8 x 3 in.)

  • Accession

    1963.10.156

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Our Lady of Elms [location unspecified], probably a gift of the artist; (M. Knoedler & Co., New York); sold 1926 to Edward Ward McMahon, Brooklyn, New York; (his sale, American Art Association, New York, 1929, no. 88); Chester Dale [1883-1962], New York; bequest 1963 to NGA.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1929

  • Loan Exhibition of Contemporary Paintings from the Collections of Mr. and Mrs. Chester Dale, Mr. James Rosenberg and others, Fifty-Seventh Street Galleries, New York, 1929, no. 5.

1937

  • An Exhibition of American Paintings from the Chester Dale Collection, The Union League Club, New York, 1937, no. 41.

1943

  • Paintings from the Chester Dale Collection, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1943-1951, unnumbered, repro.

1961

  • The Nude in American Painting, The Brooklyn Museum, 1961, no. 28.

1965

  • The Chester Dale Bequest, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1965, unnumbered checklist.

Bibliography

1943

  • Paintings from the Chester Dale Collection. Philadelphia, 1943:, unpaginated, repro.

1961

  • The Nude in American Painting. Exh. cat. The Brooklyn Museum, 1961: no. 28.

1965

  • Paintings other than French in the Chester Dale Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 43, repro.

1970

  • American Paintings and Sculpture: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1970: 66, repro.

1974

  • Gerdts, William H. The Great American Nude: A History in Art. New York, 1974: 146.

1980

  • American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1980: 172, repro.

1981

  • Williams, William James. A Heritage of American Paintings from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1981: 192, repro. 193.

1992

  • American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 196, repro.

1996

  • Kelly, Franklin, with Nicolai Cikovsky, Jr., Deborah Chotner, and John Davis. American Paintings of the Nineteenth Century, Part I. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1996: 283, repro. 282.

2000

  • Kirsh, Andrea, and Rustin S. Levenson. Seeing Through Paintings: Physical Examination in Art Historical Studies. Materials and Meaning in the Fine Arts 1. New Haven, 2000: 264.

Inscriptions

upper right: Childe Hassam / 1912

Wikidata ID

Q20191667

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