Large Reclining Nude

This canvas is almost two metres wide, and the woman fills nearly all of it. Derain painted it in 1926 or 1927, while under an exclusive contract with the Paris dealer Paul Guillaume, an arrangement that lasted until Guillaume's sudden death in 1934. This nude entered the dealer's own collection in 1929. The setting is cut down to flat horizontal bands of sand, sea and sky, and against them the pale body is ringed with heavy brown contours that spill into shadow underneath. She props her head on one hand, but the pose has the stiffness of a model holding still in the studio. Of the 28 works by Derain now in the Orangerie, the most of any artist there, every one belonged to Guillaume or passed through his gallery.