Nude Seated

Childe Hassam

National Gallery of Art

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.”