Tempera on paper
Tate Collection
Works with images
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Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/alexandre-jacovleff-1350" aria-label="More by Alexandre Jacovleff" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Alexandre Jacovleff</a>
A Model Seated on a Bed Nude Figures in a Room
Presented anonymously 1939
actions: postures and motions
adults
bed
curtain
female
furnishings
nudes
objects
people
sitting
woman
paper unique tempera
A Model Seated on a Bed. Verso: Nude Figures in a Room
support: 556 × 381 mm
Presented anonymously 1939
<strong>Alexandre Jacovleff</strong> 1887-1938
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<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/jacovleff-a-model-seated-on-a-bed-verso-nude-figures-in-a-room-n04990" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N04990</span></a> Recto: <strong>A Model seated on a Bed</strong> <em>c</em>.1937-8<br/>
Verso: <strong>Nude Figures in a Room</strong>
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Recto stamped with a seal b.r.<br/>
Tempera on paper, 21 7/8 x 15 (55.5 x 38)<br/>
Presented anonymously 1939<br/>
<em>Prov:</em> Purchased by the donor from Mme A. Jacovleff, the artist's mother, 1939<br/>
<em>Lit:</em> Martin Birnbaum, 'Alexandre Jacovleff' in <em>Art in America</em>, XXXIII, 1945, p.81
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The study on the <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/r/recto-verso" title="Glossary definition for 'Recto / Verso'"><span>verso</span></a> is rather sketchy, but appears to represent nude figures in a room, with one pushing back the curtains.
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N04990<!-- -2 -->, <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="/art/artworks/N04991" onclick="popTateObjects(event, -1, 'N04991');" title="View details of this artwork"><span>N04991</span></a> and <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="/art/artworks/N04992" onclick="popTateObjects(event, -1, 'N04992');" title="View details of this artwork"><span>N04992</span></a> are from a series of experimental studies in a freer, more imaginative style which Jacovleff executed in the last two or three years of his life. His friend and biographer, Martin Birnbaum, records that: 'Early in May, 1938, while he was preparing to leave Paris, he told me that all these sheets of fleeting notes would soon be destroyed and in his studio in Capri he would do the permanent work which he was impatient to begin and which he believed would be the solid lasting achievement of his career.' Shortly afterwards, however, he was stricken with cancer and died.
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The seal with which he inscribed this and many of his other works contains the four Chinese characters 'Ya-k'uo-fu hua' meaning 'painted by Ya-k'uo-fu', which approximates the sound of his name.
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<strong>Published in:</strong><br/>
Ronald Alley, <em>Catalogue of the Tate Gallery's Collection of Modern Art other than Works by British Artists</em>, Tate Gallery and Sotheby Parke-Bernet, London 1981, pp.372-3, reproduced p.373
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Catalogue entry
2004-09-14T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
actions: postures and motions adults bed curtain female furnishings nudes objects people sitting woman