TitleNude on a Yellow Couch
Artist
Kenyon Cox
(American, 1856 - 1919)
Date1889
MediumOil on canvas
DimensionsUnframed: 21 × 30 in.
Framed: 25 1/4 × 34 1/4 × 3 in.
SignedSigned upper right: "Kenyon Cox 1889"
Credit LineNational Academy of Design, New York, NY, Gift of Allyn Cox, Caroline Cox Lansing, and Leonard Cox, 1959
Object number1614-P
Label TextEvery aspect of this carefully controlled tonal work (the chintz couch, the drapery covering it, the pillow, the rose, the model's hair, the screen) is keyed to a bright, rich yellow or a warm brown. The head-on composition, the somewhat flattened picture space, the tapered, curled fingers, and the sense of unbroken line attest to the influence of Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, particularly his Madame Rivière (1805, Louvre). In later years, Cox often lectured on Ingres.) Cox's model, however, sits more convincingly on the couch than do Ingres's floating bodies.
