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Kneeling Nude

1906
Not on view
A typhus scare prompted Picasso's abrupt return to Paris from Gósol in August 1906, where he continued to work on projects he had begun in Spain. This drawing reveals the multiple sources that Picasso consulted and combined at this moment. The pretext of the composition—a female bather at a fountain—derives from Ingres and relates to The Harem (1906, Cleveland Museum of Art), Picasso's free reworking of Ingres's Turkish Bath (1862, Musée du Louvre, Paris) and La Source (1856, Musée d'Orsay, Paris). The compact forms and compositional clarity recall Puvis de Chavannes, but the splayed pose and archaizing features point to Gauguin. In particular, Picasso may have been thinking of a Gauguin watercolor that belonged to his friend the sculptor Paco Durrio, in whose studio he was working in autumn 1906.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Kneeling Nude
  • Artist: Pablo Picasso (Spanish, Malaga 1881–1973 Mougins, France)
  • Date: 1906
  • Medium: Fabricated chalk on paper
  • Dimensions: 24 3/4 x 18 7/8in. (62.9 x 47.9cm)
  • Classification: Drawings
  • Credit Line: Bequest of Scofield Thayer, 1982
  • Object Number: 1984.433.275
  • Rights and Reproduction: © 2025 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
  • Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art

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Head of a Woman, Pablo Picasso Spanish, Pastel on paper
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Mother and Child by a Fountain, Pablo Picasso Spanish, Oil on canvas
Mother and Child by a Fountain
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Reclining Bather with a Book, Pablo Picasso Spanish, Graphite on paper
Reclining Bather with a Book
Pablo Picasso
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