Nu couché sur coussin bleu

Modigliani painted his run of reclining nudes around 1916 and 1917, and he had help. His dealer, Leopold Zborowski, put up the money, lent a room, and even paid the models, because he believed these warm, close-up nudes would finally sell. They nearly caused a scandal instead. When about 30 of them went on show in Paris in 1917, the police ordered the gallery to take the ones in the window down on the opening day, objecting to the body hair Modigliani had painted rather than smoothed away. He cropped this figure tight against the frame, warm skin on a dark ground and a single blue cushion, and it was that plainness about a real body that the censor could not accept.