Musidora: The Bather at the Doubtful Breeze
Alarmed
Oil on canvas
Signed lower right
66.5 x 51.0 cm
PROVENANCE
Purchased in England by Nora and Arthur Streeton; thence by descent in the
Streeton family
William Etty was one of the very few English artists to paint the nude almost
exclusively. This he did in a manner derived from Titian and Ruben, that is
glowing and sensual. Many of his pictures consist of extremely faithful studies
from the nude (done in the Academy Life School which he frequented all his
life), which he presented as mythological characters. He made several journeys
to the Continent and met Eugene Delacroix (1798 –1863 )in 1825,so he would
have been aware of the French Romantic movement.
The finest collection of Etty ’s work is in his native York, but there
are other pictures in Boston, Edinburgh, Leeds, London (Tate), Manchester,
New York (Metropolitan Museum) ,and Oxford.
