Seated Female Nude (verso)

Seated Female Nude (verso), painted in 1830 and now in the Courtauld Gallery, was made on the reverse of a finished study as a rapid life-class record — reflecting Etty's habit of maximizing every prepared surface. Female models were extremely unusual in the Royal Academy life class throughout the first half of the nineteenth century; women were not officially admitted as full students until 1860, and female models were excluded from the Schools' life room until even later. Etty arranged private sessions with female models outside the Academy, a practice that was considered eccentric and occasionally scandalous given Victorian sexual proprieties. The intimacy and directness of these female studies — created in private rather than in the semi-public institution — gives them a different quality from the more formal male studies produced in the communal life-class setting. The Courtauld Gallery's holdings of multiple Etty studies from this period provide important evidence of both his practice and its social context.

The seated pose creates flowing curves that Etty captures with economical brushwork appropriate to the time constraints of a life-class session. His flesh tones are warmer and more luminous in the female figure studies than in his male nudes, reflecting his particular sensitivity to the different qualities of feminine skin. The verso placement suggests this was a secondary study, possibly done during a break or from a different angle.