Nude Woman with Corset
1876 to 1900
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
pen and blue ink on tracing paper
Dimensions
sheet: 27.6 x 21.6 cm (10 7/8 x 8 1/2 in.)
Classification
Drawing
Department
CG-W
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of Mrs. Max Beckmann
Accession Number
1984.64.88
Art Historical Context
Behold *Nude Woman with Corset*, a delicate drawing by German artist Max Beckmann, created between 1876 and1900. Executed in pen and blue ink on tracing paper (27.6 x 21.6 cm), this intimate study captures a female figure partially clad in a corset, blending vulnerability with the structured elegance of late 19th-century fashion. The translucent tracing paper—often used for preparatory sketches—lends the work an ethereal quality, allowing light to reveal the artist's fluid lines and subtle modeling. Beckmann, later renowned for his bold Expressionist paintings, began his career in this period...
About the Artist
Max Beckmann
Max Carl Friedrich Beckmann (1884-1950) stands as one of the most significant German painters of the twentieth century, a complex artist who bridged Expressionism and the New Objectivity while forging a deeply personal visual language. Born in Leipzig into a middle-class family, Beckmann's artistic journey spanned from academic classicism through the traumatic crucible of World War I to a mature s...