TAMARA DE LEMPICKA | Nu assis de profil

Galerie du Luxembourg, Paris (acquired by 1970)
Private Collection, France (acquired by 1978)
Sale: Boisgirard, Paris, June 26, 1991, lot 73
Private Collection, France (acquired by 1993)
Barry Friedman, Ltd., New York (acquired from the above in 1996)
Sale: Phillips, New York, May 11, 2000, lot 137
Acquired at the above sale

New York, Barry Friedman, Ltd., Tamara de Lempicka, 1996, no. 14 (titled Nude with Black Hair)
Tokyo, Shinjuku, Isetan Bijutsukan & traveling, Tamara de Lempicka, 1997, no. 4

Alain Blondel, Tamara de Lempicka, Catalogue raisonné, 1921-1979, Lausanne, 1999, no. B.19, illustrated in color p. 95

The canvas has not been lined. There is some craquelure scattered throughout, most notably in the flesh tones and the lower leg. There are areas of paint shrinkage to the background, notably beneath the sitter's thigh. There are faint stretcher bar marks running horizontally through the center of the canvas. The canvas is slightly buckling in the upper right corner. Under UV light, there are strokes of inpainting along the top edge. There are some scattered areas of inpainting, particularly in the figure's upper torso and leg. There is an area of inpainting in the lower left corner. There are two small patches visible on the verso of the canvas, one in the upper left corner and one in the lower right corner, viewed from the reverse. The work is in good condition overall.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Lempicka's sleek representations of the female nude are renowned as emblems of the Jazz Age. Painted around 1923 in Paris, the powerful female figure in the present work resembles an Amazonian goddess perched on a stool in the artist's studio. Her powerful limbs extend beyond the boundary of the picture and the mechanized appearance and sturdy curvature of her body call to mind the Purist figures in Léger's seminal Le Petit déjeuner (see fig. 2). Unlike the more sterile renderings of her contemporaries in the 1920s, Lempicka's nudes channeled an unapologetic brand of female sexuality that few before her had dared to attempt.

On the occasion of a recent retrospective of the artist's work, Gioia Mori wrote the following about the novelty of Lempicka's nudes of this period, "...the nudes presented at the various Salons all had a Rubensesque exuberance of flesh, from those by Derain to those by Ottmann, to mention just the most illustrated in the various reviews. The nudes of de Lempicka, though, have peculiarities that the critics did not fail to point out: the perspectival distortion and the renditions of the flesh that, as the reviewer of Le Populaire wrote, was masterly. Gigantism and smooth, solid flesh as though cut from marble were the result of de Lempicka's study of sculpture. Among the contemporary models, the female nudes of Maillol were the closest to her own sensibility, demonstrating clearly the groin, the perfect curves of the thighs, and the rounded belly" (Gioia Mori, Tamara de Lempicka, The Queen of Modern (exhibition catalogue), Complesso del Vittoriano, Rome, 2011, p. 160).