Not on display
- Artist
- Thomas Gainsborough 1727–1788
- Medium
- Oil paint on canvas
- Dimensions
- Support: 1880 x 1530 mm
- Collection
- Tate
- Acquisition
- Presented by Robert Vernon 1847
- Reference
- N00308
Display caption
This is the only large-scale nude that Gainsborough ever painted. It remained unfinished and was never shown in public in his lifetime. The title probably refers to the nymph Musidora who represented ‘Summer’ in a popular eighteenth-century poem, The Seasons, by James Thomson. But this title was added later. Gainsborough probably saw this woman more generally as an anonymous classical nymph.The figure’s pose is based on a classical marble sculpture in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.
Gallery label, May 2007
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BP Spotlight: Bodies of Nature
Bodies of (Human) Nature: Nymphs in British Art 1780–1840
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