Georges Seurat

Signed, verso, upper right: Seurat.
Seeking to fulfill the requirements for admission to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, where Seurat would study under Henri Lehmann, the young artist enrolled in the Ecole Municipale de Sculpture et de Dessin, run by the sculptor Justin Lequien. There, he learned figure drawing in the classic French academic tradition, first copying prints, then drawing from plaster casts, and eventually moving to study of the live model. Of the roughly one hundred drawings that survive from this part of Seurat's career, two dozen are studies from life. Most of these remain with the artist's descendants, with a few notable examples in French and American public collections. The most distinctive of these is the so-called Seated Hindu at the Getty (inv. 2014.11; actually not a Hindu but rather a study of the model Père Bainville), and another is the Academic Male Nude given by Richard Gray to the Art Institute of Chicago in 2019 (inv. 2019.865), but the closest comparison to the present drawing is the Male Academy, Seen from Behind at the Louvre (inv. RF 38901), which is dated 27 October 1877. This last seems almost a pendant to the present work, which must date to the same moment. They share the same refined technique, a crisp chiaroscuro with the body defined by a confident contour of shadow that is further emphasized by the white heightening. The classical contrapposto of the Morgan's example, the only female nude among his surviving academies, lends the work an extraordinary elegance and presence.