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Nude with Raised Arm and Drapery (Study for "Les demoiselles d'Avignon")

Paris, spring–summer 1907
Not on view
This image is related to Les demoiselles d’Avignon (Museum of Modern Art, New York), a painting of monumental importance for Picasso, with its themes of sexual promiscuity and its consequences. Picasso has rotated the figure of a reclining nude ninety degrees, into a standing position, to create a more brazen pose.
 The white and blue areas on the canvas represent the sheet typically draped over the model, though here it barely grazes her thigh and becomes indistinguishable from the animated folds of the curtained backdrop. Infrared reflectography has revealed an earlier composition beneath the surface layer, a nude self-portrait of Picasso.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Nude with Raised Arm and Drapery (Study for "Les demoiselles d'Avignon")
  • Artist: Pablo Picasso (Spanish, Malaga 1881–1973 Mougins, France)
  • Date: Paris, spring–summer 1907
  • Medium: Oil on canvas
  • Dimensions: 25 5/8 × 19 3/4 in. (65.1 × 50.2 cm)
  • Classification: Paintings
  • Credit Line: Leonard A. Lauder Cubist Collection, Gift of Leonard A. Lauder, 2025
  • Object Number: 2025.616.24
  • Rights and Reproduction: © 2025 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
  • Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art

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