WILLIAM ETTY, R.A. | Sleeping female nude

Anonymous sale, London, Christie's South Kensington, 8 June 2000, lot 248, where acquired.

Another version, in an elongated format, of the painting illustrated on the cover of Leonard Robinson's biography of William Etty (in a private collection).¹ More complete in composition, and with the addition of still life elements in the left foreground, this picture would appear to have been worked up from the latter painting, which is unfinished in the background elements and has the sketchy handling of a life-room study. 

The model has been posed in emulation of The Sleeping Hermaphroditus, or Borghese Hermaphroditus, a famous marble sculpture from ancient Rome replicating a lost Hellenistic bronze (Musée du Louvre, Paris).² Interestingly, in the present version, Etty has flattened the pose of the figure to accord more closely with the famous sculpture, in comparison to the slightly elevated back of the original life model.

Signed works by William Etty are extremely rare, and this sensual sleeping nude is one of very few examples. We are grateful to Richard Green for his assistance in the cataloguing of this lot. 

1 L. Robinson, William Etty: The Life and Art, Jefferson and London 2011; see https://www.amazon.co.uk/William-Etty-Life-Leonard-Robinson/dp/0786425318

2 https://www.louvre.fr/en/oeuvre-notices/sleeping-hermaphroditos