Minneapolis Institute of Art

Standing Female Nude

Conrad Meyer

Date

c. 1650–89

Medium

Two colors of red chalk heightened with white chalk, black chalk preliminary indications, on paper prepared with red wash

Department

European Art

Institution

Minneapolis Institute of Art

Born into a family of artists, Conrad Meyer is best known as a prolific printmaker and popular painter of portraits. Standing Female Nude was almost certainly drawn from life. The figure’s pose, however, calls to mind the subject of Eve, as seen perhaps most famously in Albrecht Dürer’s engraving of 1504. Standing in classic contrapposto, Meyer’s figure covers her pudenda with a small bit of drapery held in her right hand. Her slightly lowered head is turned to her right, and her eyes look up. Her left arm and hand are extended in a rhetorical gesture. She seems almost to look toward a here-absent Adam while pointing at a culpable serpent. Though this hypothetical identity as Eve fits, given the extent of Meyer’s allegorical output the figure may stand for chastity or some other quality. Switzerland, Europe

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