Acquired directly from the artist and thence by descent to the present owner

(Possibly) London, Goupil Gallery, Mark Gertler: Figure Subjects, Landscapes, still Life, Colour Notes, February, 1923, as Study for Queen of Sheba, no.13 

There are some fine horizontal cracks within the upper left quadrant. Otherwise the work appears to be in good condition throughout. Under glass and held in a white wood and plaster frame. Inspection under ultraviolet light reveals patches of retouching to the area above the model's left arm, to the left of her knee and directly below her.
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In the 1920's Gertler painted a number of Renoir-influenced female studies, always observed direct from the model, notably the finely-realised nude, Queen of Sheba (1922, Tate). 'I have been working mostly on nudes, the painting of which is interesting me more than anything else just now' (Mark Gertler to Valentine Dobrée, 26 November 1921). Although Gertler later rejected Renoir in favour of 'something more brutal' (expressed in a final Portrait of the Artist's Mother, 1924), in the interim he concentrated on the female nudes and draped nudes in a variety of poses including reclining, standing and sitting, and with which this work is consistent.

Reclining Nude is contemporaneous with Sheba and uses a similair palette of orange-yellow and green, typically offset against the mellow flesh tones of the sitter (who is unidentified). The pose, colouring and well-rounded figure of the model are consistent with Gertler's 'types' in this period, such as Queen of Sheba, with which Reclining Nude shares a number of styalistic and compositional details.

We are grateful to Sarah MacDougall for her kind assistance with the cataloguing of this lot.