Study after the Model (Geesje Kwak?)

George Hendrik Breitner's 'Study after the Model (Geesje Kwak?)' (1901) is a figure study from the model — Geesje Kwak was a model who appeared in several of Breitner's celebrated nude studies, her specific physical presence recurring through the series of Amsterdam interior studies that were among his most artistically ambitious and critically controversial works. His studies of the nude model in domestic settings challenged Dutch conventions about the nude in art by removing the mythological or classical pretext that conventionally justified figure studies.

Breitner renders the model study with his characteristic directness — the figure observed without the idealization or mythological distance of conventional academic nude painting. His handling of the figure's form and the specific quality of the domestic interior light creates the specific atmosphere of his Amsterdam studio figure studies. The study format's freedom allowed him to pursue the essential observational content without the compositional conventions of exhibition painting.