Women on a Balcony / Jacob Epstein
About this Item
Record Details
- Accession Number
- 2009/1.498
- Title
- Women on a Balcony
- Artist
- Jacob Epstein
- Artist Nationality
- British
- Artist Life Dates
- (1880 - 1959)
- Medium and Support
- watercolor and graphite on paper
- Object Creation Date
- 1900-1959
- Object Creation Place
- Europe (continent)
- United Kingdom (nation)
- England (country)
- Greater London (metropolitan area)
- London (inhabited place)
- Creation Place 1
- Europe (continent)
- Creation Place 2
- United Kingdom (nation)
- Creation Place 3
- England (country)
- Creation Place 4
- Greater London (metropolitan area)
- Creation Place 5
- London (inhabited place)
- Credit Line
- Joseph F. McCrindle Collection
- Style/Group/Movement
- Modernist
- Dimensions
- 45.72 cm x 35.56 cm (18 in. x 14 in.)
- Century
- 20th century
- Primary Object Classification
- Painting
- Physical Description
- Eight women appear on a balcony in this drawing with a vaguely indicated crowd looking up at them from below. Most of the women appear at least partly nude, and several wear headdresses and necklaces reminiscent of Egyptian costume.
- Subject Matter
- In this drawing the famous but controversial British sculptor Sir Jacob Epstein imagines a public spectacle of decadence. He pictures eight women who together project an aura of vigorous but inaccessible and imperious sexuality above a crowd of onlookers. The woman standing at the front of the group grasps the edge of the balcony and gazes upward. Her face is left uncolored, but her eyes are covered with a dark gray wash, giving her a marmoreal and frigid mien. Four of the other women stand rigidly behind her and appear psychologically distant, including the woman looming over the others at the back, whose yellow skin gives her the appearance of a golden idol. Several of the other women are given a more palpable erotic charge: the woman at the right edge of the balcony appears in profile and gazes alluringly downward, while on the left an entirely nude woman erotically engages with a woman wearing a headdress.
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- Rights
- If you are interested in using an image for a publication, please visit https://umma.umich.edu/about/services/request-image/ for more information and to fill out the online Image Rights and Reproductions Request Form.
Technical Details
- Collection
- University of Michigan Museum of Art
- Image Size
- 2278 x 3056
- File Size
- 182 KB
- Record
- 2009/1.498
- Link to this Item
-
https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/musart/x-2009-sl-1.498/2009_1.498.jpg
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- Full citation
-
"Women on a Balcony; Jacob Epstein." In the digital collection University of Michigan Museum of Art. https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/musart/x-2009-sl-1.498/2009_1.498.jpg. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed April 24, 2024.
