A Female Nude striding in a Landscape
William Etty RA (York 1787 – York 1849)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1807 - 1849
Materials
Oil on panel
Measurements
787 x 508 mm (31 x 20 in)
Place of origin
York
Order this imageCollection
Anglesey Abbey, Cambridgeshire
NT 515704
Caption
William Etty saw himself in the tradition of the Old Masters, whose art was based on a long training in life-drawing and a knowledge of classical subjects. But despite his serious intentions, he often found it difficult to sell his larger paintings to prudish Victorian collectors. His justification for painting the female nude so insistently was that he found ‘God’s most glorious work to be Woman’, and ‘that all human beauty had been concentrated in her’. Although there was much contemporary criticism of his work on the grounds of indecency, Etty was not deterred from his self-appointed task.
Summary
Oil painting on panel, A Female Nude striding in a Landscape, by William Etty RA (York 1787 – York 1849). Landscape background, nude woman in dancing position with veil falling from left shoulder.
Provenance
Bequeathed to the National Trust by Huttleston Rogers Broughton, 1st Lord Fairhaven (1896-1966) with the house and the rest of the contents.
Credit line
Anglesey Abbey, The Fairhaven Collection (National Trust)
Makers and roles
William Etty RA (York 1787 – York 1849), artist