Reclining Male Nude
Medium
Charcoal on buff laid paper
Dimensions
24.4 × 32 cm (9 5/8 × 12 5/8 in.)
Classification
chalk
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
7324
Art Historical Context
Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (1824–1898), a leading French Symbolist painter, created this intimate *Reclining Male Nude* in charcoal on buff laid paper, as a preparatory study (date unknown). Measuring just 24.4 × 32 cm, the work exemplifies his mastery of the human form, drawing from classical antiquity while embracing a poetic, dreamlike aesthetic that influenced later movements like Art Nouveau. Housed in the Art Institute of Chicago's Prints and Drawings department and classified under chalk techniques, it reveals Puvis's academic roots amid the late 19th-century Parisian art scene. The rec...
About the Artist
Pierre Puvis de Chavannes · 1824–1898
Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (1824–1898) was a French painter who became the foremost muralist of nineteenth-century France and a crucial bridge between academic tradition and modernism. Born in Lyon to a prosperous family, he studied briefly with Henri Scheffer and Thomas Couture in Paris and traveled to Italy, where the frescoes of the Italian Renaissance made a lasting impression on his artistic v...