Nude

William Merritt Chase

National Gallery of Art

Shown from the hips up, a mostly nude woman sits facing away from us with a white cloth wrapped around her hips in this vertical painting. The woman’s torso and head, which bends forward and to the right, are painted in detail, while the tan background and pumpkin-orange slashes below the white cloth are looser. The back of the woman’s ear and her elbows are tinged pink, and her black hair is pulled up. A hank of hair falls alongside her face. She reaches slightly forward with her right hand and holds something, though details beyond her body are difficult to make out. The painted area of the composition creates a loose oval in the center of the taupe-colored canvas. The artist signed the lower right corner, “Chase.”