Nude on a Blue Cushion

Amedeo Modigliani, 1917

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Artist: Amedeo Modigliani (Italian, 1884–1920)
Medium: oil on linen
Size: overall: 65.4 x 100.9 cm (25 3/4 x 39 3/4 in.); framed: 84.7 x 120 cm (33 3/8 x 47 1/4 in.)
Museum: National Gallery of Art
Rights: CC0 — no rights reserved

A nude woman with long, dark brown hair and peach-colored skin reclines against a denim-blue cushion in this stylized, horizontal painting. The painting is done mostly with areas of mottled color outlined in delicate black lines. Shown from the knees up, the woman lies with her legs to our right, and her hips tipped forward so her body faces us. She looks at us with dark, almond-shaped eyes under thin, arched brows. Bangs gather across her forehead, and her dark hair seems to be pulled back. Her head is tipped to our right, and she has an upturned nose, smooth cheeks, a pointed chin, and her smiling coral-red lips are closed.

She holds the back of her left hand to her cheek and props herself up on her other elbow. Her rounded breasts have rust orange-colored nipples, and the contours of her body are smooth. There is a patch of dark hair at her groin, and her legs are pressed together. The blue pillow she rests on overlaps a white cloth or second pillow. The rest of the background is painted a terracotta brown with loose brushstrokes, so the setting is undefined. The artist signed the painting in dark letters in the upper right corner: “modigliani.”