School of Jacques-Louis DAVID

The model in the studio

Oil on canvas
81 x 59 cm without frame
96 x 73 with frame
Around 1820

This seated female nude in an academic pose is painted with a sober color palette and a neutral background that emphasizes the shape of the body. The rendering of volume and light obviously evokes 19th century academic art.
Having asked for several opinions on this nude, one answer occasionally comes back: a northern school, Danish in particular. But the most frequent assertion remains a student of the great Jacques-Louis David, master of neoclassicism, whose entourage consisted of several hundred painters and whose artistic production spanned more than fifty years…