(Tapiau 1858–1925 Zandvoort)

Female nude. 1885.

Oil on canvas.

Signed upper right: CORINTH.

90.5 × 56 cm.

Provenance:
- W. Becker, Munich.
- Ms. Dr. Lippmann, Berlin.
- Dr. Walter Müller, Grube Ilse (1926).
- Private collection, Dresden.
- Private collection, Hessen.
- German private collection.

Exhibitions:
- Berlin 1926, Lovis Corinth, Ausstellung von Gemälden und Aquarellen zu seinem Gedächtnis, Nationalgalerie, no. 11.
- Kassel 1926, Lovis Corinth, Kunstverein Kassel, no. 3.
- Dresden 1927, Lovis Corinth, Gedächtnis-Ausstellung: Gemälde, Aquarelle, Zeichnung, Aquarelle, Graphik, Sächsischer Kunstverein, no. 4 (with ill.).

Literature:
- Charlotte Berend-Corinth: Die Gemälde von Lovis Corinth. Werkkatalog, Munich 1958, p. 56, no. 25 (with ill. p. 271).
- Alfred Rohde: Der junge Corinth, Berlin 1941, p. 50, no. 29 (with ill.).

The painting presented here is the 25th work in the œuvre of Lovis Corinth in his catalogue raisonné and is therefore one of the artist’s earliest works. It is the first portrayal by Corinth of a female viewed from behind and one of his very first nudes. Corinth's fascination for the female body — nude, and preferably voluptuous — accompanied the artist throughout his entire work. The Dutch Masters served as his role models, especially Peter Paul Rubens, an affinity that had already been noticed by Corinth's contemporaries. When one looks at the numerous nude depictions of Charlotte Berend in the artist's work, and his obsession with the precision of form and preference for the white, smooth skin of his models, the parallels to the work of Rubens, also perceptible in our work, can no longer be overlooked.